Jaina Ethics

Author(s): Dayanand Bhargav
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Page 36

Introduction
which the Jainas hold to be of supreme value for all moral progress. This synthetic position is not self-contradictory. We shall deal with this problem of determinism vs. freedom of will at the end of this discussion separately. For the present we can say that if our miseries and happiness were to be guided by some blind fate, all ethics, religions and instructions will lose their importance.
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4. Chance (Yadṛccha)
B
This school of thought is called by the name of 'accidentalism' by modern thinkers. These accidentalists believe that there is no so-called 'cause and effect' relation between any objects. Their argument is that we cannot show the ultimate cause of any event. Therefore, they conclude that every event is merely a matter of chance.
The only good that this theory can do to us, according to the Jainas, is that it reminds us of the subordinate position of instrumental cause (nimittakāraṇa) as against the substanţial cause (upādānakāraṇa) which holds the primary position. In the history of Western philosophy, Plato and Aristotle are inclined towards accidentalism. Stoics, on the other hand, realised that a law is working in this universe and every effect can be traced to some cause.1 Grier Hibben has remarked that accidentalism is a view of the world which characterises a pre-scientific period of thought."
5. Bhūta (Matter) B
Materialists hold unconscious matter to be responsible for everything. They only believe in pratyaksa (authority of perception) and therefore, do not agree with other systems of Indian philosophy with regard to the existence of soul. The Sūtrakṛtānga gives the ethical implications of this theory. "There is neither virtue nor vice, there is no world beyond; on the dissolution of the body the individual ceases to be'.3
1. James, Hastings, (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, New York, 1955, Vol. I, p. 65.
2. Ibid., p. 64.
3. Sütrakṛtänga, SBE Vol. XLV, Oxford, 1895, 1.1.1.12 (p. 237).