Jainism

Author(s): Vallabh Smarak Nidhi
Publisher: Vallabh Smarak Nidhi

Page 18

destinies of men from behind or above. On the contrary, it teaches that every individual works out his own destiny by his own mental and physical exertions which, by themselves, generate energies thet bring to him agreeable or disagreeable experiences. This is the Karma theory of Jainism which has been worked out in great detail. According to it, nothing as a rule, will come without effort, and no action will go without its appropriate result. It makes each individual fully responsible for his progress or decay-a sort of complete individual autonomy. The jains worship, not the creator or the destroyer of the universe, but those great saints whom thay believe to have known the ultimate truth and to have preached it to humanity. These saints they call Tîrthankaras that is, those who made it easy for others to cross over the ocean of life.
It will be seen that in a religious system like this there is no place for a distinction of caste and creed, and for a struggle for form and ceremony. But if within the jain community these weaknesses exist, they are in spite of specific religious injunctions against them and as a result of the close association of the Jains