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142
METAPHYSICS
if we suppose that the Lord himself caused rewards and punishments for the acte of men, we should often have to accnse him of cruelty and partiality; and that it is better therefore to allow that all works, good or bad, prodace their own results, or, io other words, that for the moral government of the world no Lord is wanted"
(SSP, 211). Max Müller, commenting upon this theory of karmas bearing their own fruits, says:-- “..... Jaimini would not make the Lord responsible for
the injustice that seems to prevail in the world, and henoe reduced everything to cause and effect and saw in the inequalities of the world the natural result of the continaed action of good or evil acts. This surely was not atheism, rather was it an attempt to clear the Lord of those charges of crnelty or ondue partiality which Have so often been brought against him. It was but another attempt at justifying the wisdono of God, an ancient Theodicee, that, whatever we may thiuk of it, certainly did not deserve the name of atheism" (Ibid.
pp. 211--212). So much for Jaimini's view as to the efficacy of * works". As for the cult of sacrifice, it will suffice for the present to quote what the Mahabharata declares on the subject:
अहिंसा सर्व भूतानामेतत् कृत्यतम मतम् । एतप्तदमनुद्विग्नं वरिष्ठं धर्म लक्षणम्॥ हिंसा पराश्चये केचयेच नास्तिक वृत्तयः । सोभ मोह समा युक्तास्ते वे निरयगामिनः ।
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