Jaina Ethics

Author(s): Dayanand Bhargav
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Page 34

Introduction
with them. But to say that there is no freedom of will, amounts to denial of moral responsibility for action. Obviously, such a theory cannot become the basis of any sound ethical system.
(iii) Fatalism
Fate means that whatever happens, happens necessarily. Everything is predetermined. We cannot choose between good or bad, for our future course of action is already fixed. Amongst modern philosophers, name of Spinoza may be mentioned, who was a staunch believer in determinism. "Only ignorance makes us think that we can alter the future; what will be will be, and the future is as unalterably fixed as the past. This is why hope and fear are condemned: both depend upon viewing the future as uncertain, and therefore spring from lack of wisdom."1
The Mahabharata has a long discussion on the controversy of fate VS. human efforts.2 Amongst contemporaries of Mahavira and Buddha, Makkhali Gosāla (or Maskarin Gosāla) seems to be an absolute fatalist. According to him, the soul after completing the number of inevitable births is automatically freed of miseries. There is no punishment or reward for any conscious practice of vice or virtue. Not that vice and virtue are not connected with bondage or release, but to quote Zimmer: "According to this "hempen shirt" doctrine of Gosāla, man's moral conduct is not without significance......Our words and deeds, that is to say, announce to ourselves—and to the world-every minute, just what mile stones we have come to......pious acts, then, are not the causes, but the effects; they do not bring but they foretell release."'4
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Another fatalist with a difference but again a contemporary of Mahāvīra, was Purāṇakāsyapa (or Pūrṇakāśyapa). He says: 'that to one who kills a living creature, who takes what is not given, who breaks into house, who commits dacoity, or
1. Bertrand Russel, History of Western Philosophy, London, 1948, p. 597. 2. Mahabharata, 13.6.7-12.
3. Digha Nikaya, Pt. I, Bombay, 1942, 1.2.20.
4. Zimmer, H., Philosophies of India, pp. 267-268,