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An Epitome of Jainism the Vedânta alone has become prominent. But students who study impartially the other systems, will realise the importance of their contributions to Indian thought and culture.
The supremacy of Vedânta over the systems, which are to a very great extent realistic, is not a thing to congratulate ourselves. For, realism is generally allied to science and many of the scientific theories pertaining to the constitution of the physical world are associated with these realistic schools, e. g., the atomic theory of the Nyâya and Višeshika schools. Idealism even in the West either openly or covertly has been antagonistic to the interests of science. Hence any attempt to escape from the hypnotic illusion of a powerful idealism is to be welcomed by impartial students of science and philosophy
It is not possible for us to examine in detail the several realistic schools of Indian thought. Hence we shall confine ourselves to Jaina philosophy which is generally neglected by many and misunderstood by the few who attempt to speak on it.
JAINA PHYSICS
We have referred to the contribution to Indian wisdom by the warriors. By their plain living and high thinking they led to the emancipation of human intellect from the thraldom of barren ritualism. While the priest-craft was engaged in devising sacrifice after sacrifice, their minds were dominated by a passionate desire for solving the riddle of the universe and for understanding the nature of the Eternal One behind the world of appearance. This dominant phase of monism centres round the court of Janaka. But there must have been other schools of new Kshatriya thought. This group of thinkers could not compromise with the traditional thought of the Vedic period. They show a strong bias towards Dualism and Pluralism. They represent the liberal tendency in the new thought itself. Whenever they encountered a conflict between their ideals and the Vedas, they did not hesitate to repudiate the authority of the latter. To this left wing of the
thought we owe the systems of philosophy such as the Sankhya the Jaina and the Buddhistic schools. It is worthy of notice here that the greatest intellectual performances or rather almost all the performances of significance for mankind in India have been achieved by men of the warrior caste."*
The Sânkhya system presupposes two kinds of existences--physical and spiritual, prakriti and purusha--rather an infinite number of purushas. Salvation according to Sânkhya consists in the differentiation between the two, matter and spirit. The individual purusha secures emancipation by recognising its own intrinsic qualities as being distinct from the prâkritic
"Philosophy of Ancient India" by Richard Garbe.
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