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JAINISM: A THEISTIC PHILOSOPHY "GOD IN JAINISM"
plan and purpose, and work by instinct. Man uses the superior gift of his intellect to understand the conditions and meaning of the struggle to devise plan and instruments to ensure success.
355
Desire for knowledge always springs, therefore, from the rational nature of man. Philosophy is an attempt to satisfy this very reasonable desire. As an eminent English writer puts it, "Men live in accordance with their philosophy of life, their conception of the world. It is impossible to live without metaphysics. The choice that is given to us is not between some kind of metaphysics and nometaphysics; it is always between a good metaphysics and a bad metaphysics. Indian philosophy denotes the philosophical speculations of all Indian thinkers, ancient or modern, Hindus or non-Hindu, theist and atheist. Even in the ancient writings of ancient Hindu philosophers like Madhavācārya. In his Sarva-darśanasangraha he has tried to present views of all (sarva) schools of philosophy (darśana) of atheists and materialists like Cārvākas, also called Lokayata, an unorthodox thinkers because they did not accept the Vedic authority like Bauddhas and Jainas, along with those of the orthodox Hindu Vedic thinkers."
4
There were many schools of Indian philosophy and their views differed from each other, at a time quite widely, yet each school took care to learn the views of all the others and did not come to conclusion before considering thoroughly what others had to say and how their points could be met. Openness of mind, willingness to listen to what others have to say, has been the chief causes of the wealth and greatness of Indian philosophy.
In ancient India, philosophers never felt that the world was field of battles when men in other part of world struggled for power, wealth and domination, but they thought and were in search of
3 'Aldous Huxley, "Ends and Means", P- 252, Dr. Chattarji and Dr. Datta, "An Introduction to Indian Philosophy", 1984, P- 1-3
4
Ibid
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