Ethnicity and Religious Heritage

Author(s): T U Mehta
Publisher: T U Mehta

Page 92

Jainism and Democracy
87
Michael Tobias, former Professor of Ecology and Humanities, rightly notes in his book Life Force, "Most crucially, Mahavir adopted what Greeks would later term a 'hylozoistic' approach to the natural world, a view that all matter contains soul, soul which is in the state of permanent, living, breathing feeling flux. Thus the clay bound earth, water, air and fire — all are living organisms."
Mahavir told his disciple Gautam that the ultimate end of soul is "Samatva"- the concept which equalizes the potentiality of each soul - the very essence of democracy - a sort of kinship resulting from psychological reciprocity intrinsic to life-force.
In the same book Tobias notes, "Mahavir even went so far as to analyze soul clusters such as coral, moss, algae, lichen and posited the existence of the living equivalent of atoms namely Nigodas. Jains knew about physical atoms long beofre 5in century B. C. Greek philosopher Democritus described them. Jains called them "Anu." Molecules were named "Skandha" and together they comprised the basis for all pudgala or matter (Ajiva)". He