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JAINISM.
Having been asked to give something on Jainism, to which I am indebted for the following views and beliefs, I will give that which I appreciate and hold to be of value at any rate for myself. Being an enquirer into the Jain teachings, I cannot myself give an exposition of the philosophy itself, but only of the understanding developed in me through my fortunate acquaintance with the teachings. My liking being rather for the philosophical than the religious aspect of life the following may, to the warm-hearted, strike chilly.
In Jainism I find a solution to the heretofore unsolved problem of existence. I find plain answers which cannot be truthfully refuted, and which sink into and satisfy every corner of the brain, and which if attacked by searching criticism show up only still more brilliantly. Answers I now have to the questions. What are we living for? What is soul? Matter? Space? Time? Substance? God? Reward, Punishment ?
etc.
Most satisfactory is the view that substance of the universe is permanent; that there never was in the infinite past a time when matter, souls, space, time, etc. did not exist; that to assume such non-existence in a remote past is a false view; that as these things have always existed, creation was not necessary. And what can be more inconsistent than after taking the view that everything needs to be created, to name one thing or being (God) that did not need to be created? The view that the individual is everlasting is most comforting; that each individual is for ever the same, and never becomes another; but only in sense, for the predicate can, from other points of view than the one here meant, be denied.
I like the view of the history of the soul from eternity to eternity which divides such history into three sections, namely,
