Jain Journal 1989 10

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

Page 19

52
Buddhism, is fundamentally atheistic, in that, while not denying the existence of the gods, it refuses them any important part in the universal scheme. The world, for the Jaina, is not created, maintained or destroyed by a personal deity, but functions only according to the universal law."8 Again S. Radhakrishnan remarks: "The Jaina view is that the whole universe of being, of mental and material factors has existed from all eternity, undergoing an infinite number of revolutions produced by the powers of nature without the intervention of any external deity. The diversities of the world are traced to the five co-operating conditions of time (kāla), nature (svabhāva) necessity (niyati), activity (karma) and desire to be and act (udyama)."
JAIN JOURNAL
From the above discussion, it is clear that the Jaina view of God is conditioned by their conviction that the world is uncreated and indestructible. So, Jainism may be regarded as a kind of naturalism, because it denies theistic type of explanations of the universe. The universe according to the Jainas, is neither created nor destroyed by a Supernatural Being, a God. Instead, it has existed eternally and operates in terms of natural law. In this system, we have seen the most consistent theory of realism, which maintains that the ontological categories are eternally real and hence they are not in need of a Creator God who is the Supreme Cause and Ruler of the world. The Jaina, like other Indian Schools of thought admits the efficacy of individual desires in determining individual fact. But the system does not find any urge to postulate God as the dispenser of reward and punishment-it is karma alone which fructuates and determines the course of an individual through different births. Because the Jaina believes in the inexorable moral law of karma which no mercy can bend.
The term 'god' is used in Jainism to denote a higher state of existence of the jiva or the conscious principle. The system believes that this state of godly existence is only a shade better than that of the ordinary human being, for, the latter is not free from the cycle of birth and death. In this context, the view of S. Radhakrishnan is worth quoting: "God is only the highest, noblest and fullest manifestation of the powers which lie latent in the soul of man."10 Jacobi also explains the atheistic aspect of Jaina thought as follows: "Though the Jainas are undoubtedly atheistical, as we understand the term, still they would probably object to being styled as atheists. While admitting that the world is without beginning or
A. L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India, (Bombay, 1963), p. 290. • S. Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy, Vol. I, (London, 1941), p. 330. 10 Ibid., p. 331.