Jain Shwetambar Conference Herald 1916 Book 12

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

Page 210

શ્રી જૈન કવેટ કોહરડ.
The one great Truth which the authors of the Upanishads thought to have discovered, and which they are never weary of exalting, is that, underlying and upholding from within all things, physical as well as psychical, there is one absolute permanent Being, without change and with none other like it. The relation between this absolute Being and existent matter has not clearly been made ou: by the authors of the Upanishads, but all unprejudiced readers will agree that they looked on the phenomenal world as rtal. On this point the different schools of Vedantins arriv: di at different conclusions, which, however, need not detain us lere.
In opposition to this Brahmanai doctrine of absolute and permanent Being, Buddha taug! that all things are transitory; indeed his dying words were. tilat all things that are produced must perish. The principal i resy, according to the Buddhists, is the Atmavada, i. e. the belief that permanent
Being is at the bottom of all things they are, as we should * say, but phenomena, or as Buddha pressed it dharmas; there
is no dharmin, no permanent subster of which the dharmas could be said to be attributes.
Thus the Brahmans and the B hists entertained oppo. site opinions on the problem of Bein. because they approached it from two different points of view. The Brahmans exclusively followed the dictates of pụre reason which forces us to regard Being as permanent, absolute, and coiform; the Buddhists, on the other hand, were just as one-sided in following the teaching of common experience according to which exis. tence is but a succession of originating and perishing. Either view, the a priori view of the Bralimans, and the a posteriori view of the Buddhists, is beset with many difficulties when we are called upon to employ it is explanation of the state of things as presented to us by our consciousness; difficulties which cannot be overcome without strong faith in the paramount truth of the principle adopami.
The position taken by the Jailää towards the problem of Being is as follows. Being they contend, is joined to production,