Jaina Philosophy

Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi, Kumarpal Desai
Publisher: World Jain Confederation

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The Jaina Philosophy
which is the highest life is that in which we are personally independent so far as binding or disturbing influences are concerned. In the highest state the soul, which is the highest entity, is independent. This is the idea of our religion. The first important idea connected with it is the idea of the universe. Is it eternal or non-eternal? Is it permanent or transitory? Of course there are so many different opinions on the subject, but with these opinions I am not concerned in this lecture; I am only going to give the idea of the Jaina philosophy.
We say that we cannot study any idea unless we look upon it from all standpoints. We may express this idea by many symbols or forms; we have expressed it by the story of the elephant and the seven blind men who wanted to know what kind of animal the elephant was, and each touching a different part of the animal, understood its form in so many different ways, and thereupon became dogmatic. If you wish to understand what kind of animal an elephant is, you must look upon it from all sides, and so it is with truth.
Therefore we say that the universe from one standpoint is eternal and from another non-eternal. The totality of the universe taken as a whole is eternal. It is a collection of many things. That collection contains the same particles every moment, therefore as a collection it is eternal; but there are so many parts of that collection and so many entities in it, all of which have their different states which occur at different times and each part does not retain the same state, at all times.
There is change, there is destruction of any particular form, and a new form comes into existence; and therefore if we look upon the universe from this standpoint it is non-eternal, With this philosophy there is no idea, and no place for the idea of creation out of nothing. That idea, really speaking, is not entertained by any right-thinking people. Even those who believe in creation
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