Hajarimalmuni Smruti Granth

Author(s): Shobhachad Bharilla
Publisher: Hajarimalmuni Smruti Granth Prakashan Samiti Byavar

Page 1020

पंचम अध्याय : ६७
However, such forms of worship are foreign to the Jaina religion. They do not form an organic and constituent features of the Jaina worship. The course of religion had to encounter many conflicting tendencies. Some of the tendencies have been absorbed and assimilated in the struggle for existence and survival. We may, here, refer to the inconceivable changes the Buddhist forms of worship have undergone in the various countries of the world, like the tantric forms of worship in Tibetan Lamaism. We have still some Gods in Jaina cosmogony. They are the 'devas' the Gods living in heavens like the 'bhavanavāsi', 'vyantaravāsi', jyotiśvāsi', and 'kalpavāsi'. But they are not really Gods in the sense of superior divine beings. They are just more fortunate beings than men because of their accumulated good karma. They enjoy better empirical existence than men. But we, humans, can pride ourselves in that the 'Gods' in these worlds cannot reach moksa unless they are reborn as human beings.14 They are not objects of worship. V. Struggle for perfection is a necessary factor in life. Sorrow and imperfection are a flavour to the sauce. They are necessary for onward journey in the spiritual struggle. The efforts of self-realization will have meaning only when this world becomes a vale of soul making and the life a real fight in which something is eternally gained.16 Life is to be considered as a struggle towards perfection, and not merely an amusing pantomime of infallible marrionettes. We should realise that 'man is not complete, he is yet to be'. In what he is, he is small. He is hungering for something which is more than what he can get. In this struggle for perfection man need not depend on God or any superior being for favours, for he 'rolls as impotently as you or I'. Man has to depend on his own self-effort. The Jaina attitude is melioristic. Tagore writes, “In the midst of our home and our work, the prayer rises 'Lead me across'. For here rolls the sea, and even here lies the other shore waiting to be reached."16
REFERENCES
1. Smith (U.R.): Religion of the Semites, pp. 55. 2. D. Miall Edwards : The Philosophy of Religion, pp. 61. 3. Kasmai devāya havisam vidyema'. 4. Gunaratna : Tarka-rahasya dipikā. 5. Syādvādamanjari of Mallisena with Hemacandra's Anyayoga-Vyavaccheda-Duatrimvisika
Edt : Dhruva A. B. Introduction. 6. Ibid. 6. 7. Gunaratna: Tarka-rahasya-dipikā. 8. Gunaratna : Saddarsana-samuccaya, pp. 114.
Aśvaghoșa's Buddhacarita gives a detailed description of the topic. Dialogues of
Buddha. Also refer to Syādvada Manjari for similar view. 10. Ibid. 11. Pancăstikāyasāra, pp. 27 and Samayasāra pp. 124. 12. Desai (P. B.) : Jainism in South India, (1957), pp. 72. 13. Ibid. pp. 74. 14. Tiloya Pannati gives a detailed description of the three worlds. 15. William James : The will to believe (1889), pp. 61. 16. Tagore (R): Sadhana : The Realization of the Infinite.
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