Doctrines of Jainism

Author(s): Vallabhsuri Smarak Nidhi
Publisher: Vallabhsuri Smarak Nidhi Godiji Jain Derasar Mumbai

Page 27

The Doctrines of the Jainas
11
From nothing comes
Nothing comes out of nothing. nothing, what is does not perish.”
Atman is a living individual, a biological entity. The whole self does not outlast the destruction of the body. With the body ends life. No soul exists apart from the body. The five substances with the soul as the sixth are not directly or indirectly created. They are eternal. From nothing comes nothing. All things have the atman, self or ego for their cause and object; they are produced by the self; they are manifested by the self; they are infinitely connected with the self, and they are bound up in the self. One man admits action and another does not admit it. Both men are alike. Their case is the same because they are actuated by the same force, i.e., by fate. It is their destiny that all beings come to have a body to undergo the vicissitudes of life and to experience pleasure and pain. Each of these types stands as an example of akriyavada in as much as it fails to inspire moral and pious action or to make an individual responsible for an action and its consequences.3 According to the Uttaradhyayanasutra, ajnanavada is nothing but the inefficiency of knowledge. Some think that the upholders of ajnanavada pretend to reason incoherently and they do not get beyond the confusion of their ideas.4 The Vinayavada may be taken to have been the same doctrine as the silabbataparamasa in Buddhism. The silabbataparamasa is a view of those who hold that the purity of oneself may be reached through the observance of some moral precepts or by means of keeping some
1. Noya uppajjae asam. 2. asalo nacci sambhavo, salo nacci vinaso. 3. Sutrakrtanga II, 1.5-34. 4. Sutrakrtanga 1.12.2.