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Tulsa Jain Sangh Pratishtha Mahotsav 2004
Jainism Not An Atheism
A guide for separating mytb from reality
By Herbert Warren
Around the year 1900, Herbert Warren was a young man in England whose questioning of his Anglican faith led him to study under the great Jain scholar and barrister Virchand R. Gandhi. A product of British skepticism, Warren embraced Jainism and its codes of nonviolent ethics and would later write a number of works explaining them relative to other current ideologies, including this piece which was republished in India by The World Jain Mission (Etah) under guidance of Elcharya Muni Shri Vidya Nandji.
Those who believe in a creator sometimes look upon Jainism as an atheistic religion, but Jainism cannot be so called.
Jainism does not deny the existence of 'God' (Siddha, Paramatman). God is described in Jain scriptures, but there is a difference between the description of God as given in these books and the description given in the religious books of other faiths. The chief difference is that while God is described in the books of some other faiths as being a creator and ruler, God is not so described in the Jain books. God, according to the Jain description is an all-knowing and perfectly happy soul with infinite capacities for activity: a pure and perfect soul without any material body, a being that cannot perish or become degenerate.
To disbelieve in the existence of a thing is not the same as simply not attributing to that thing some particular quality. In believing in the existence of soul in a pure and perfect state Jainism cannot be classed with those who do not believe in the existence of soul different from matter (materialists). Pure soul and 'God' are in reality one and the same thing, and the final goal of any particular soul is to become pure and perfect; in other words, to become a God with all the attributes of divinity which, in the Jain faith, do not include creating and ruling.
Atheists, properly speaking, are those who deny the existence of soul and maintain that there is no such thing as a soul distinct from matter. They assert that what people call 'soul' is nothing but an outcome of a particular combination of atoms of matter, and that when that particular combination is impaired, the soul becomes extinct.
According to Jainism every living soul (Jiva] has existed from eternity, and from eternity souls have ever been emerging from the ordinary embodied worldly condition, and will continue for all time to do so; but they never come down from this condition of Godhead to the condition of souls in the ordinary embodied states.
From all eternity the ordinary soul has been indulging in false attachment and aversion to other things. Ignorant of its own nature, and by reason of this indulgence it is never at ease. Upon the abandonment of this attachment and aversion the soul becomes calm and tranquil, and when completely free from the influence of these unnatural activities, the soul lives its natural life and
Jain Education InteHerbert Warren, "Jainism Not an Atheism
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