Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

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

Page 166

The Sophisticated Stage 145
These four divisions contain a number of provinces, each having a town, a nunber of mountains and a few rivers. Bhāratavarsa or India proper lies to the south of Himavat.
The Unfounded Speculations and their Ethical Considerations
Thus in the cosmography of the Jains we come across a pronounced departure from the spirit of scientific enquiry. Also in other cases there was infilteration of a priori principles and imaginative speculations, but their scope was limited both in extent and in degree. However, the fact cannot be denied that there was an intellectual conflict among the Jain philosophers themselves regarding the formation of specific principles concerning the problems of life and universe. This conflit was between objective enquiries on the one hand and fanciful imaginative contemplation on the other, and eventually it was the latter that came to dominate the entire field. In fact there was originally no difference between science and metaphysics in Jainism, but the latter ultimately emerged out as a speculative philosophy and set itself to the impossible task of prying into the transcendental beings above and behind the physical universe. It pretended to judge the reality of things by a standard, the very existence of which was not proved.
The departure from the field of objective enquiries to that of pure imagination was facilitated by the introduction of numerous divine and semi-divine beings and the doctrine of Karma. In all probability these two factors were co-existent with Jainism since its very inception, but at the initial stages of its development their scope was limited. The inclusion of a number of divine beings within the framework of a basically a theistic religion like Jainism has been explained in the second chapter. It was due to an unavoidable historical process. Originally they were the suppressed non-Vedic deities whose cults were naturally revived due to the anti-Vedic bias of early Jainism. In course of time they were multiplied, given a variety of names and epithets and also suitable areas in the cosmos to live in. They did not, however, create any serious problem in regard to the question of atheism, because they were no more than idealised human beings, intended to serve some ethical purpose. They were neither omniscient nor omnipotent. A great god was as subject to Karma as an earthworm. Evil deeds would ultimately cause his fall from the world of
Kirfel, KI, pp. 214-42.