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Contribution of Jainism to Philosophy, History and Progress
peace and industry. The early effusions of the Aryan people, when we find them on the march of conquest of the aboriginal races of India, are invocations of prosperity on themselves and their flocks: adoration of the dawn, celebration of the struggle between the god who wields the lightning and the power of darkness, and the rendering of thanks to the heavenly beings for preservation in battle. When they settle down, we see them engaged in a high degree of reflection.
Reflection is the moving spirit of philosophy. But all primitive philosophy concerns itself with searching for the origin of the world. It postulates, after naive analysis, an original simple substance, from which it attempts to explain the multiplicity of the complex world. Philosophy in this sense assumes various forms. All of them attempt to interpret or rather formulate the law of causation and in that attempt many, fatigued after the long mental strain, stop at some one thing, element, or principle (physical or metaphysical), beyond which they have not mentally the ability to go. The Sankhya Philosophy, for instance, tries to explain evolution and even "cosmic" consciousness and the growth of organs, etc., as proceeding from a simple substance call Prakriti, or primordial, matter.
Orthodox philosophical systems of India that is, those based on the Vedas and the Upanishads - adopt either the theory of creation, or of evolution, or of illusion to explain the origin of the world. Whatever theory they resort to, a simple substance or substances, intelligent or unintelligent, is or are postulated as the origin or cause of whatever there exists. Of the primal substance or substances there is no cause or origin. Early Greek philosophers - Thales and others considered the riddle of existence solved when the original material had been stated, out of the modifications of which all things consist. How the original simple substance converted itself into complex substances no
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