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JAINA CONCEPT OF GOD IN JAINA THEISM
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horse sacrifice, the horse whose body is universe, the sacrifice of the one who carries the many - devas, gandharvas, asuras, and men.
The approach of śramaņas towards worship, especially of Jainas, was quite different. Non-violence principle of Jainas is quite opposite to the Vedic ritualistic sacrifices or killing animals to please gods. As a result the very spirit of sacrifice innocent animals was opposed by the Sramaņa tradition- Jainism and Buddhism.
But it was not revolt against Vedic rituals. Some scholars maintain that emergence of Jainism and Buddhism was the result of revolt against the Vedic system. Dr. S. Radhakrishnan says, “This cry of revolt taken up by the Upanişads are carried on by the Buddhist and Jaina schools,"13
Dr. Sagarmal Jain observed that it was not a revolt but a reformer's crusade. In fact, Vedic and Sramanic traditions are not rival traditions, as some of the Western and Indian scholars think, but they are complementary to each other.'
Jains advocated asceticism by means of temperance, chastity and mental concentrations. They maintain that tapas or austerities are better than sacrifices regarded as means of higher knowledge and divine favour.
Jainism and Buddhism, due to their ascetic practices by which the unchangeable essence could be freed from the changing trammels, tried to purify Hindu religion, which included impurities such as dogmatic approach and ritualistic sacrifices. Indian and Western scholars pointed out that both Mahāvīra and Buddha protested against ritualistic sacrifice tradition of Vedic Aryan. This kind of writing on the part of scholars was to create a deliberate gulf between Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism, because Lord Mahāvīra, who was preaching philosophy of non-absolution and non-violence
13 Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, “Indian Philosophy”, Vol.-1, 1997, P-107 * Dr. Sagarmal Jain, “An Introduction to Jaina Sadhana", 1955, P-5
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