Jaina Psychology

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

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JAINA PSYCHOLOGY
versal laws of cause and effect, but he did not commit himself to this conception wholly without reservation. He ascribes events to a causal order for the most part," and insists upon the contingent in nature, that which is without cause and without law. Plato finds a place for Chance in the economy of the universe. "God governs all things, and chance and opportunity co-operate with Him in the government of human affairs." Accidentalism in the field of ethics appears in the theory of Absolute Indeterminism. Epicurous, for instance, regards the uncaused will of man as analogous to the accidental deviation of atoms from the direct line of their fall.1 The uncaused event and the uncaused will both present the same general characteristics and the same difficulties also.
MATTER
Next comes Matter. The materialists believe in the sole reality of Matter. They refuse to recognize as the first principle something other and higher than the mere working out of the forces inherent in Matter, which may be a non-material power like a conscious soul. They acknowledge Matter as the solitary source of the created manifold. In the Dīgha-nikāya the doctrine of Materialism is ascribed to the philosopher Ajitakeśakambalin. He maintained that there is no such thing as alms or sacrifice or offering. There is neither fruit nor result of good or evil deeds. There is no such thing as this world or the next. There is neither father nor mother nor beings spring into life without them (ayonija). There are in the world śramanas or Brāhmanas who have reached the highest point, who walk perfectly, and who, having understood and realized, by themselves alone, both this world and the next, make their wisdom known to others. A human being is built up of the four Elements. When he dies, the earthy in him returns and relapses to the earth, the fluid to the water, the heat to the fire, the windy to the air, and his senses pass into the ether. The four bearers, he on the bier as a fifth, take his dead body away. Till they reach the burning ground men utter forth eulogies: but there his bones are bleached, and his offerings end in ashes. It is a doctrine of fools, this talk of gifts. It is an empty lie, mere idle talk, when men say there is profit therein. Fools and wise alike, on the dissolution of the body, are cut off, are,
2 Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. I, p. 64.