Compendium of Jainism

Author(s): T K Tukol, A N Upadhye
Publisher: Prasaranga Karnatak University Dharwar

Page 75

CONCEPT OF GOD AND OF WORSHIP
all-knowing, the all-merciful, the omnipresent, the formless, the partless. He creates this universe."2
During the primitive days of civilization, man regarded the most powerful elements of nature, like fire, wind, rain etc as gods. He must have wondered nursing over impregnable nature and conceived of many forms as worthy of worship by propitiating through various kinds of offerings including sacrifice of animais etc. Referring to ancient Judaism which regards Jehovah as the Maker of the Universe and of two human beings Adam and Eve, Robert Bridges, the former Poet Laureate of England wrote:
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"I wondered finding only my own thought of myself, and regarding there that man was made in God's image and knew not yet that God was made in the image of man; nor the profounder truth that both these truths are one, no quibbling scoff- for surely as mind in man groweth so with his manhood groweth his idea of God, wider ever and worthier, until it may contain and reconcile in reason all wisdom, passion and love, and bring at last (may God so grant) Christ's peace on Earth."
If we consider the concepts of numerous faiths in the world, we would know undoubtedly that the forms of God as conceived in Puranas and mythologies are legion and that these Gods are supposed to protect their devotees from evils or grant them their desires if they were pleased with their worship and offerings. Amongst the Hindus, the Trinity of Brahma, Viṣṇu and Mahesa has been popular in conception. The followers of Viṣṇu and Mahesa or Siva regard their own God as worthy of worship and the other as a subordinate God. Amongst them, we have stories of Visņu with his ten Avataras always ready to protect the weak and to save his devotees from the hands of the wicked. Sarasvati, Lakṣmi and Parvati are respectively the wives of these gods. Numerous legends have been told of Śiva also. There are many lesser gods, like Indra, Yama, Varuna