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10
Bhagavan Mahavira Sramana Samskrti And God
The distinguishing characteristic of the Śramanic civilization is that it has not accommodated the deified elements of Nature, the heavenly gods, or the eternally free God as the doer or the agent or the creator. On the contrary, it avers that an ordinary man can progrees to such an extent that he can become an object of worship or veneration not for common people but for gods even. It is because of this only that the gods such as Indra and others appear in Śrāmaṇic civilization as worshippers only and not as worshipped. In Bharatvarṣa, people like Rāma and Kṛṣṇa became the objects of worship in Brāhmaṇic civilization and the Brahmaņas did not merely stop at taking them as pure human beings. They went further and bestowed divine character on them. They were treated as Gods, meaning thereby that they were considered as incarnations of God. As opposed to this, the Śramanic civilization recognised Mahavira as a fully integrated human being. He was never given, in the Śrāmaņic civilization, a form of eternally enlightened or eternally emancipated supreme being. There is in the Śrāmaṇic civilization no place to God who is a supreme creator.
Negation of the Theory of Incarnation
When we find that an ordinary man can take re-birth according to his merits and deeds, there is no scope for the principle of God's incarnation just as it is conveyed through the following stanza :
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यदा यदा हि धर्मस्य ग्लानिर्भवति भारत । अभ्युत्थानमधर्मस्य तदाऽऽत्मानं सृजाम्यहम् ॥
The world has never assumed and also shall never assume the nature of heaven. This indicates that it will always need the presence of worldsaviour for all time. There is every opportunity in this world and always for reformers and revolutionaries. The contemporaries are never able to appreciate their worth and capacity as the future generation. Let alone this, but they are not sufficiently eager to understand them even. These reformers and revolutionaries have to face in their life-time many an adversary. Every
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