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JAINA CONCEPT OF GOD IN JAINA THEISM
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a worshiper wants to wipe away his sins. God wipes sin off on trita, the sacrifice.
Early Vedic Aryans, who were primitive, if not semicivilized and semi-barbarous, settled down and began to wonder at charming, tempting, terrible and destructive aspect of the nature. They personified them in an anthropomorphic fashion and called them gods and goddesses and began to worship them.
Hinduism calls itself Sanātana Dharma, that which is eternal. It has eternal faith in Vedas, Upanişads, and it is based not upon the teachings of a single preceptor, but on the collective wisdom and inspiration of great seers and sages, from the very dawn of Indian civilization.
Devas are heavenly, the kind, the powerful, the invincible, the immortal and in the end something like theoi or du of Greek and Romans. Father and mother and spiritual guides are also devas. Even a guest is deva.' We have to take into account only that notion of deva which answers roughly to the modern concept of God. It then means bright. ?'The word Devatā means the deity who accept oblation.
Dr. S. Radhakrishnan says, “The Indo-Iranian gods of Dyaușa, Varuņa, Vyās, Mitra, etc. were the product of poetic consciousness found in hymns of Rgveda, and in the period of conquest and battle, useful utilitarian deities as Indra were conceived. Thus the polytheism spread among Vedic Aryans and later, in ordinary course of time, polytheism lead to monotheism and the most powerful god among the hierarchy of gods is enthroned as the ruler of this universe. And it can be seen that the permanent elements of the universe, as sky, wind, fire, rain, etc. were deified and hence cosmology became confused with religion, which is
Mātridevobhava, pitrdevobhava, ācāryadevobhava/ atithidevobhavall Dr. Radhakrishnan, “Indian Philosophy”, Vo. 1, P-73
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