Divinity In Jainism

Author(s): Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: Devendra Printing and Publishing Co Ltd

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of doing so, pantheism denies the world itself This is no explanation of the world. Then again, no one feels tempted to hold the things and the phenomena of the world as utterly unreal Is it not opposed to the very perception of ours, that there is no difference between things and things, that all things are identical in nature and that all of them are the mani. festations of one Pure Being? If all the Individual Souls arc but identical and if all of them are but modifications of one ultimate Essence, there would practically be no 'Freedom of the Will', and, if there is no freedom of the will, man is not responsible for his good or bad acts and his final Emancipation becomes a misnomer.
In ancient India, the Jaina philosophers raised objections against the Advaita doctrine and their criticism of the pantheistic position was on essentially the same line with that of the modern philosophers They argued that if you look upon the world as utterly nonexistent or illusory, you deprive yourself thereby of all reality To all appearance at least, the world is a reality to us, what reason is there to hold it as non-existent ? Rather, the perception that the world is a reality should lead us to the conclusion that it