Introducing Jainism

Author(s): Satyaranjan Banerjee
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 16

INTRODUCING JAINISM one of the things to offer to gods in order to please them became very apparent. 13
Finally, came the philosophical speculation to establish the relationship of man with God.4 Different philosophers from time to time tried to explain the mysterious elements of Nature and by that they tried to understand the equally mysterious elements of human life. In order to determine the mysterious relation between man and God, the question of jñāna (knowledge) and karma (series of actions) came into existence. The Brāhmanic and Upanişadic treatises emphasize the value of Knowledge or Self-realisation for attaining the ultimate goal (parama Brahma), and they set forth the summum bonum of the life of man, and also how to get parama purusa. They have also raised the question of ultimate Reality of Divinity. The answer to this question has been given by different philosophers in different ways. In later times, six or nine systems of Indian Philosophy (Jainism being one of them) have suggested different paths to be followed by man. Some philosophers who are the followers of Vedic injunctions stressed the jñāna-mārga (the path of knowledge), or the karma-marga (the path of the series of actions), or at a much later time bhakti-mārga (the path of Devotion or Faith). The atheistic philosophers have their own views. They in general renounced the theistic views from their field of studies.
: It is at this stage man's function in the worldly life comes into existence. To the Vedic school it is seen that to prepare the ground for attaining the parama purusa, the Vedic people started from the very beginning to speculate on man's function in mundane life by establishing the four stages of life (catur āśrama).15 These are brahmacarya, gārhasthya, vāņaprasthya and sannyāsa. In the brahmacarya stage, a man should undergo the life of a student in order to discipline his life by means of knowledge. He can be a naişthikabrahmacāri (taking the life of a celibate) seeking knowledge
13. Ranade, ibid., pp. 4-5. 14. Ranade, ibid., pp. 153-155. 15. The Gșhya-sūtras and Smộtis generally describe the four stages
of life.