Jain Shwetambar Conference Herald 1916 Book 12

Author(s): Mohanlal Dalichand Desai
Publisher: Jain Shwetambar Conference

Page 209

श्री जैन श्वेताम्बर कान्फरन्स हेरॅल्ड, Vaina Shvetamlara Conference Herald.
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The Metaphysics and Ethics
of the Jainas
H. JACOBI.
ALL who approach Jain philosophy will be under the impression that it is a mass of philosophical tenets not upheld by one central idea, and they will wonder what could have given currency to what appears to us an unsystematical system. I myself have held, an given expression to, this opinion, but I have now learned to wok at Jain philosophy in a different light. It has, I think, metaphysical basis of its own, which secured it a distinct i tion apart from the rival systems both of the Brahman, and of the Buddhists. This is the su. bject on which I would engage your attention for a short space of time.
Jainism, at least in its final form, which was given it by its last prophet the ty ty-fourth Tirthakara Mahavira, took its rise, as is well kno , in that part of Eastern India where in an earlier period, in ording to the Upanishads, Yajoavalkya had taught the doctrine of Brahman and Atman, as the perma. nent and absolute Beius, and where Mahavira's contemporary and rival, Gotama the Buddha, was preaching his Law, which insisted on the transituriness of all things. Jainism, therefore, had to take a definite position with reference to each of these mutually exclusive doutrines; and these it will be necessary to define more explicitly.