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-3A COMPARATIVE STUDY
For ages, there has been an eternal search for Divinity in all civilisations/religions. Notwithstanding this search, the concept of Divinity remains elusive and innumerable wrong notions/ideas are associated with the concept. Dr Ajay Kothari has done a good work in trying to put together major beliefs concerning Divinity. The comparative study promotes better understanding but these concepts are hardly comparable as the foundations are different for each of them. However, Jainism stands distinctly different from all other concepts.
According to Jainism, every individual, rather every individual specie (all living beings and not only human being) is divine and has the potentialities to achieve Godhood. The ultimate aim of life of every being is or should be to realise one's own nature of divinity and pursuit of all other things in life has no purpose whatsoever. The endless cycle of births and deaths continues unless this is realised. From the infinity in the past, one's soul has been wan. dering in the universe in different forms because one has not realised the state of divinity.
The divinity manifests in its all perfection in the state of liberated souls/moksha which is permanent, immutable and in. comparable. The divine is in its intrinsic purity and possesses in. divisible infinite properties. It is eternal, uncreated and uncontaminated by alien conditions. It is a pure and spiritual entity. It is entirely characterised by oneness but described by infinite prop. erties. Each divine is the most beautiful object in the whole uni. verse. It would be wrong to associate shackles or impurities with this sublime and beautiful entity.
A divine view of the pure soul results in the realisation of the divine and ultimate liberation. This perception is facilitated by the understanding of major properties of the divine out of infinite such properties. The Samayasara, a masterpiece of Acharya Kunda Kunda and its commentary by Acharya Amritachand, narrates the divine properties. The divine is characterised by infinite life, conscious. ness, perception, knowledge, bliss, potency, independence, sovereignty, vision, transparency, self-illumination and growth. The divine exhibits properties such as non-cause effect relation in re.
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