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Jaina Philosophy and Religion
others. The same logic can apply to theism. God or the Supreme Soul commands us to practise good conduct, to be righteous, to be pure in thought, speech and action. There are some persons who do not believe in God yet follow His command, that is, tread on the auspicious path of righteousness and rectitude. Are they not the devotees of God? Virtually they are devotees of God, believers in God, though they are regarded as atheists from the standpoint of their opinion. It is so because though they do not uphold the view or idea of God, they do follow the path of righteousness which God has commanded all beings to follow. God who pervades and sustains the whole world expects nothing from His devotee. If at all He expects, He expects this much from him that he may be a very human person. If He were to command him, He would command him simply this much: “Be human. Remove all impurities, defects and evils from life. Be virtuous. Be righteous. Be kind and good unto others. Perform good acts.” It is only with a view to inspiring man to lead such a life that spiritual monism instructed him to shed off all infatuation with worthless material worldly objects, to realise unity and identity of all living beings, to cultivate spiritual disposition and to practise spiritual discipline for the realisation of soul. Dualism instructed us to clearly distinguish the insentient material element associated with soul from the soul and to completely dissociate the former from the latter. In other words, it taught us to attain the state of non-attachment and thereby to reveal pure consciousness. Momentarism demonstrates the fleeting nature of all worldly objects and thereby impresses on our mind that it is not wise to get attracted to and infatuated with them. In this way, it has contributed to the wise teaching of how to destroy attachment and infatuation. Sūnyavāda (the theory of Void) explains how all worldly objects are decaying and perishing every moment and propounds that all things are of the nature of void, that is, they are essenceless or worthless. The theoreticians enunciated such a theory on the basis of universal experience of all-pervading Emptiness or Void, with a view to uprooting attachment which is the main cause of all miseries and wickedness. Jñanavāda puts emphasis on right knowledge and declares that it is the main and direct cause of liberation. It considers Nescience or Ignorance to be the cause of bondage or transmigratory existence. Under the influence of Nescience, mind mistakes happiness for unhappiness, good for evil, the beneficial for the harmful, and vice versa. Mind of the ordinary worldly men imagines non-existent attributes and superimposes them on the external objects. Thus Nescience
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