Jain Journal 1974 04

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

Page 31

APRIL, 1974
169
or Nirgrantha, now better known as Jaina or Arhata, already existed as an important sect when the Buddhist church was being founded.
der, therefore, to come to a solution of the above question, perhaps it will be best to take from published Buddhist and Jaina works, as the oldest witnesses that we can summon, available information about the Nigantha, their doctrines and religious practices.26
I. The Eternity of Atman
There were at the time of the Buddhists and Jaina several other schools of philosophy, whom they each called heretics. And it will not be out of place to mention what were their theories about Ātman, the 'soul', or as Professor Max Mueller prefers to translate it--the self'. First, there were three materialist schools--the one contending that the body and the soul are one and the same ; the second, that, the five elements are eternal and constitute everything as in the following lines :
'Man (purușo) consists of four elements ; when he dies, earth returns to earth, water to water, fire to fire, wind to wind, and the organs of sense merge into air (or space—ākāśa')}26 ;
The third school was a variety of the second, and is thus described :
'Some say that there are five elements and the soul is sixth (substance), but they contend that the soul and the world (i.e., the five elements) are eternal. “These (six substances) do not perish neither (without nor with a cause); the non-existent does not come into existence, but all things are eternal by their very nature","27
Then we find a fourth school of Fatalists described as saying :
But misery (and pleasure) is not caused by (the souls) themselves ; how could it be caused by other (agents, as time, &c.)? Pleasure and misery, final beatitude and temporal (pleasure and pain) are not caused by (the souls) themselves, nor by others; but the individual souls experience them; it is the lot assigned them by destiny."28
Lastly, -four schools of Agnostics are given us-Kriyāvāda, Akriyāvāda, Ajñānavāda, and Vamayikavāda. All these were considered by the Jaina as heretical. These Agnostics, or Ajñānika, negatived
26 Cf. S. B. E., vol. xlv, Sutrakrtanga, ii, I, 20-23. 37 Ibid., i. I 15, 16. 28 Ibid., i, 1, 2, 2, 3.