________________
JAINISM
condition. The substantial cause of the water (in the foregoing example) was the water in its previous condition, snow.
Thus the law of causation as formulated by the Jain philosophy recognizes two causes or classes of causes for every event, and both causes are equally necessary, equally present, and equally real; the determining cause is operative in shaping the other substance, and the substance is active in its reaction. As this is an important subject it may be applied to the old example of a watch. If you find a watch, you argue, not merely to its maker, but to the pieces of metal it was made of. The pieces of metal react in the hands of the watch maker, and exhibit themselves in a new way and assume changed relations to each other. They were previously not a watch; now they are a watch. If one being in any way shapes another being, this latter was already in existence, as well as the shaper, be he parent, teacher, or God; and co-operates in reacting to become whatever he is, whether sinner or saint. Nothing is created in the sense of not having from any point of view previously existed. When a child is conceived it come from somewhere else.
Thus is the early vague idea of origin and causation developed into a clear and definite understanding.
This is the end of the first part of the subject. The universe is seen to be a system of five different real substances two of which, viz., the material and the spiritual, are a mass of interrelated ultimate units, each unit being a complexity of irresolvable qualities. These units are permanent, the relations between them are always changing, and the units or elements of the universe are ceaselessJail. Edzcation International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org
