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Significance of Jainism :: 151
difficulties in the normal course of life but also would lead to complete disaster. As a result of this attitude, people began to place entirely blind faith on the omnipotent God and to secure his favours by practising certain rites and rituals laid down for the purposes. These prescribed rituals were so elaborate that they did require the services of priests who were supposed to have the special knowledge about these rites and who were also specifically authorised to perform these rituals in a proper manner. In this way the entire code of conduct of the people was fully dominated by the practice of various rituals throughout the course of life and by the priests whose help and assistance were considered most essential to work as intermediary between people and God for securing desired favours from God.
Tīrthankara Mahāvīra and Jaina Achāryas launched an intensive attack on this attitude of complete submission to God by the people for attaining their final objective in life, viz., liberation. In this regard Tirtharkara Mahāvīra firmly asserted that this world is eternal and has not been created by any power like God and that the happenings in this world are not controlled by God. He clearly proclaimed that nothing here or elsewhere depends on the favours of God but everything depends on the actions of the people. He confidently stated that all persons, irrespective of their class, family or position, have got a right to achieve salvation, their ultimate objective in life, by relying on themselves and through the observance of an ethical code of conduct and not by merely performing some rituals with the help of others. For this purpose he laid down a path to liberation which consisted of right faith, right knowledge and right conduct and appealed to the people to follow this path on their individual initiative and efforts and not with the help of any intermediary.
Further, he impressed on the people the theory of karma which is based on the principle of self-reliance. This doctrine explains the reasons lying behind or causes leading to effects. It maintains that every happening in this world is the result of some antecedent causes. Since the individual soul is the
