Jain Journal 1988 07

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

Page 10

JULY, 1988
Among the successors of Rsabhadeva, the twenty second Tirthankara Neminatha is related to Lord Krsna and the twenty third Tirthankara Parsvanatha and twenty fourth Tirthankara Mahavira are wellknown to the Pali literature of early Buddhism. Remaining spiritual leaders are not much known to the history of today.
These Tirthankaras are not the founders of Jainism. They are propagators of the supreme truth and spirituality. They had attained it through right conduct and penance. They were individual human souls, and not the divine personalities, who revealed the path of pusification and liberation from all passions and desires through right vision. They threw off the yoke of bloody sacrifices and other Brahmanic rituals, and rejected the conception of the incarnation of God. They refuted the idea that God is the creator and destroyer of the universe and put aside the authority of the Vedas and derecognised the caste system of the Brahmanic society. Pluralistic system of their thought paved the way of salvation for the realization of self by each and every being. Another important feature of Jainism is to observe non-violence in all spheres of speculation, social conditions and political and religious disciplines and practices. It implies a pessimistic and ascetic outlook towards mundane life. Complete detachment from samsāra and observation of nudity indicating non-possession as its symbol is its prerequisite stage for the attainment of emancipation from karmas.
Jainism is more known to us through Tirthankara Mahavira, the contemporary of Tathagata Buddha. His prominent spiritual followers have written a vast literature in Prakrit and Sanskrit. Our analysis of spirituality and other religious practices is based on their monumental works.
Conception of Spirit and other Categories :
The main aim and object of spiritual disciplines and practices is to enable a man to realize spiritual happiness and perennial peace. To obtain this motto of life, one is expected to believe first in the existence of spirit or soul which is said to possess qualities of consciousness, rememberence, desire for knowledge, desire for movement, doubt etc. The other substance is non-soul which is not endowed with consciousness. Matter, motion, rest, space, and time come under this category of non-soul (ajiva). Of these the soul and matter are the most important as their interaction results in the origin of the universe.