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Jaina View of Life
Fatalistic theory of life was presented by Makkhali Gośāla, a contemporary of Mahāvīra. He considered himself a rival of Mahavira. He said that happiness and misery are measured to one as it were in bushels. The duration of life and the transmigration of souls have their fixed forms. No human effort can change them. Mahavira and the Buddha opposed Gośāla most vigorously.
2. It is also said that the Karma theory is inconsistent with individual freedom of the will. It does not guarantee true freedom to the individual which is essential to his moral progress.89 Karma works as the inexhorable law of causation, in its essentially mechanical way. And in the background of caste system, the boon of individual inequality becomes a curse; ‘if Karma had not to work with caste, a varņasrama-dharma, a wrong idea of the self and transmigration, we might reconcile Karma with freedom. But as it is, it is not possible. The theory in entirety cannot escape the charge of 'determinism' from the point of view of higher morality. Older Buddhism and Jainism were much concerned to defend self-regulative character of Karma; salvation was essentially through self-reliance : and there was fear of the antinomian tendencies of the notion of reliance on others (e.g. the Lord)." The answer to the charge of fatalism was that by our own efforts we can annihilate the existing Karma and neutralise its effects.
But it is difficult to determine the nature of this objection. We are told that from the point of view of higher morality Karma theory cannot escape the charge of determinism. Yet, the objection is determined by and based on the individual's status in a particular caste. It is more a sting against caste system than a criticism of Karma theory. The objector appears to confuse the essential from the accidental. It is a fallacy of
39. Paul (C. S.): The Suffering God (1932), p. 60. 40. Paul (C. S.): The Suffering God (1932), p. 60. 41. Smart Ninian : Doctrine and Argument in Indian Philosophy, p. 164.
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