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JANUARY, 1972
93
When the Aryans conquered India they brought with them their polytheistic religion and its scriptures, the Vedas. Rather than convert the native Dravidians, they isolated them and would not permit one word of the Vedas to reach their ears. The Dravidians couldn't have cared less. Many of them preserved the Jaina faith, elements of which ultimately became fused with Vedism. It is possible that the Upanişads, and later the Bhagavad-Gitā, were the results of this fusion.
It is worth mentioning here that Krsna, Lord of the BhagavadGitā, was of Dravidian stock. The name "Krsna" means "the black”, and the Dravidians were a black people. Despite this fact, . Krsna became one of the most important gods in the Aryan's Brahmanism. Krsna is also an honoured personage in Jainism, due to his faithful observance of the Jaina morality, and also due, perhaps, to the fact that he was the cousin of Aristanemi, one of the twenty-four saviours of Jainism
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Jainism and Animism
Animism is the belief that everything in the universe is motivated by the power of the soul. It is the first form of man's religious awareness. This fact does not make the belief invalid, however. Modern science tells us of the tremendous activity within one atom ; could not soul (jiva) be the motivating force of this activity ? What difference does it make if one calls the energy within the atom a force, as science does, or a soul (jiva) as Jainism does ? :
The Jaina religion sees the universe as inhabited by an infinite number of distinct souls. These souls may incarnate in any form, possibly as an insect, plant or animal body, or even a fire body, earth body, air body, or stone body. It seems that the Jaina assumption is that where there is a force, there is a life. Who is to say whether or not the atoms or Leibnizian monads possess life? It all depends on one's definition of life. Even modern science cannot supply us with an adequate definition of "life", as is shown by the fact that modern science cannot create life ; such creation would imply clear-cut definition as a prerequisite.
The soul (jiva) is to Jainism a "something behind", which is best described as a life force. The Jaina never makes the mistake of confusing the senses and the temporal self with the essence of a being, as do many Western religionists. A being's soul may incarnate into a body which has only one sense, or into a body which has several senses. The
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