Jain Journal 1993 04

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

Page 46

APRIL, 1993
205
and dramas, grammar and rhetorics, and so on. All these treatises will tell us all about Jainism.
It is generally said that Jainism is basically a revolt against some of the fundamental issues of Vedic religion. But to me it appears that it is not. It is one of the ways of interpreting human life and society, and from that point of view it is, in a sense, unique of its nature. Mahavira has, of course, challenged some of the fundamental issues of Vedic religion, but they are interpreted in a more straight forward way than it was done before. His logic is more mundane and acute than the previous one. And from that point of view it seems revolutionary, but it is really not. Let us discuss some of the points in a nutshell.
First, the Vedic conception of the ultimate Reality or Divinity as an outside creator-God is challenged. Not only that the conception of God as a perfect being is questioned--it was often asked if God were perfect, then why his creations were imperfect? If the world is the creation of a perfect Being how is it that there are sorrows and sufferings, miseries and want, and iniquities in his created beings ? Whatever may be the position of God as a perfect Being, it is an undeniable fact that there are miseries in the world. The Jainas and the Buddhists went on further to emphasize that if the woes and troubles of the creatures are to be accounted for by the act of the creatures themselves, and if the creator-God could not be held responsible for them, then what is the point of accepting the outside creatorGod ? So they eliminated the outside creator-God from their process of thinking. They accepted this world as it is and tried to account for the miseries. Buddhism says that the miseries of the creatures are due to taṇhā (funquenchable thirst') for existence on the part of the creatures themselves. Jainism asserts that miseries and imperfections are due to karma ('a series of actions') on the part of the upemancipated soul for which he comes to live in this world again, Honce if any Godhood is attached, it is to be attached to a person who is a perfectly emancipated soul being possessed of Omniscience, and a perfectly all powerful man being absolutely free from all taints of selfishness. He is a person who saw the eternal verities as they were and realized the truth as they came to him. So to the Jainas there is no need to accept an outside creator-God. This is the first thing which the Jainas did with regard to the Vedic conception of creator-God.