Jaina Psychology

Author(s): Mohanlal Mehta
Publisher: Sohanlal Jain Dharm Pracharak Samiti Amrutsar

Page 24

KARMA: THE BASIS OF JAINA PSYCHOLOGY
7
NATURE
The philosophers believing in Nature as the determining factor of creation hold that events are determined by their own inherent Nature. There is no other force, inside or outside, over and above Nature, that can claim to determine the course of events. Nothing can come into existence if it were against its Nature to be born. So the presence of Nature must be considered a necessary antecedent to the birth of the universe, and as such, Nature is the essential cause of the whole universe.
In the Buddha-carita, an enquiry was set afoot by someone as to what it was that gave pointedness to thorns, and diverse colours to woods and birds. It is all due to Nature and Nature alone. It is not in need of anybody's effort in the least. It is over and above human effort.1 The Gita remarks the omnipotence of Nature in the following lines: The Sovereign Self does not create for the people agency, nor does He create acts. Nor does He connect acts with their effects. It is Nature that works out these. This theory is brought out in the Mahābhārata passage endorsing sentiments like: Through Nature they are impelled to activity, and in the very same manner they desist therefrom: all these beings as well as non-beings. Human endeavour exists not.3 PRE-DETERMINATION
The advocates of Determinism_think that whatever Things that happen by necessity Whether this Pre-determination
happens, happens necessarily. happen by Pre-determination. is personal or impersonal, is a problem that does not require any discussion here. According to the doctrine of Necessitarianism, as we have already discussed, everything is ruled by an absolutely logical necessity. There is no such thing as Free Will. It will not be out of place to refer to Spinoza, a great philosopher of the West, who criticised the doctrine of Freedom of Will vehemently. He established the truth that only ignorance makes us think that we can alter the future; what will be will be, and the future is as
1 Buddha-carita, 52.
Na kartytvam na karmāņi lokasya srjati prabhuḥ.
Na karmaphalasamyogam svabhavastu pravartate. Bhagavad-gitā, V, 14.
3 Quoted in the History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. II, pp. 458 ff. (Belvalkar and Ranade).