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JAINISM: A THEISTIC PHILOSOPHY "GOD IN JAINISM"
sowed a handful of the seeds, which was his. The same grew up as an egg, made up of the 24 tattvas. Brahmā spent twelve years doing austerity, concentrating his thought on Visnu. Visņu appeared before him to whom Brahmā said that he was placed by Śiva in his charge to create world. But the world created by him (Brahmā) was motionless and material. So Brahma requested Visņu to put life in the world created by him. The universal Purușa, Visņu who touched heaven and earth, pervaded the Egg, and the Egg of 24 tattvas became full of life and consciousness (sa-caitanya) from Pātāla to Satya-loka. Brahma created a number of sons born of His mind; however, they all became ascetic. So Brahmā, approached the Mahadeva, Śiva who resolved to do what Brahma desired, and hence the creation of Brahma became everlasting from thereon.
In summary, the work of Brahma consisted in producing all material, and formed the archetypes of all living things. Šiva-purāṇa and Viṣṇu-bhāgavata explained, Visņu being that aspect of Isvara, God, helped to put in, Prāṇa that is the life that holds forms together and preserves them as forms, together with cit(consciousness). Further, Śiva-purāṇa said that when these forms had been fully developed, Mahadeva, Śiva, the God was appealed who then gave to it immortality, that is, he linked to the forms the Jīvātmans evolved in previous kalpas, life."
43
VI. (iv) Philosophical Evolution of the Idea of Supreme God as a Creator:
(a) In Ṛgveda Hymns of Mandala X - 129: The Rgveda Samhita or collection consists of 1,017 hymns, covering a total of about 10,600 stanzas. It is divided into eight aṣṭakas, each having eight adhyāyas or chapters, which are further subdivided into Vargas. It is sometime divided in ten mandalas. The first mandala is ascribed roughly to fifteen different authors or Ṛsis (seers or sages) such as Gautama, Kanva etc. Next six mandalas are ascribed to a single family of
43Dr. Annie Besant, "Sanatana Dharma", 1940, P-53
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