Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

Author(s): Narendra Nath Bhattacharya
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

Page 112

The Sophisticated Stage 91
does not admit action. Both men, he who admits action, and he who does not admit action, are alike, their case is the same, because they are actuated by the same force. An ignorant man thinks about the cause as follows: 'When I suffer, grieve, blame myself, grow feeble, am afflicted, or undergo great pain, I have caused it; or when another man suffers, etc., (as before) he has caused it.' Thus an ignorant man thinks himself or another man to be the cause of what he or the other man experiences. A wise man think about the cause as follows: 'When I suffer, etc., I did not cause it; and when another man suffers etc., he did not cause it. A wise man thinks thus about the cause of what he himself or another man experiences. I say this: “Movable or immovable beings in all the four quarters thus (i.e. by the will of fate) comes to have a body, to undergo the vicissitudes of life, to lose their body, to arrive at some state of existence, to experience pleasure and pain."! Regarding the Buddhists we have also some information in the Süyagada.” “Some fools say that there are five Skandhas of momentary existence. They do not admit that (the soul) is not different from, nor identical with (the elements), that it is produced from a cause (i.e. the elements), nor that it is without a cause (i.e. it is eternal)."3 The Buddhist views, especially those on Ahimsā, are vehemently criticised in the Jain texts.
So far as the Brāhmaṇical systems are concerned, it appears that the compilers of the Sūyagada were acquainted with the cosmogonical speculations of the Brāhmaṇa and Purāņic literature, with the basic features of the Sāmkhya and also with the incipient forms of the Vedānta and the Vaišeşika: “We hear also of another error of some (philosophers): some say that the world has been created (or is governed) by the gods, others, by Brahman. Some say that it has been created by the Iśvara, others that it was produced from chaos, etc., this world with living beings and lifeless things, with its variety of pleasure and pain. The great Rși said, that the world has been created by Svayambhū; Māra orginated Māyā, therefore the world (appears to be) uneternal. Some Brāhmaṇas and Sramaņas say that the universe was produced from the (primeval) egg, and He (Brahman) created the things. These ignorant men speak untruth. Those who on arguments of their own maintain that the world has been created, do
ISBE, XLV, pp. 239-40, 345-47. *I. 1.17; I. 2. 25-28; II. 6. 26-29. 'SBE, XLV, p. 238. "I. 3. 5-9.