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JAINISM: A THEISTIC PHILOSOPHY “GOD IN JAINISM”
suffering, the thirst for life and its pleasure is cause of suffering, the extinction of that thirst is the cessation of suffering and that such extinction can be brought about by a holy life.“
Gautama said, “Birth is suffering, decay is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering. Presence of objects we hate is suffering, not to obtain (objects) we desire is suffering."
Buddha says, “A man regards the soul either as identical with or as posing or as containing or as residing in the material properties or sensations or in the other three Skandha (aggregates). By regarding soul in one of these ways he gets the idea “I am". Then there are the five organs of senses, and mind, and qualities and ignorance. From sensation produced by contact and ignorance the sensual, unlearned man derives the notions ‘I am’, “this I exist', 'I shall be', 'I shall not be etc. But now, mendicant, the learned disciple of the converted, having the same five organs of sense, has got rid of ignorance and acquired wisdom, and therefore the ideas ‘I am' etc. do not occur to him.""
According to V.R. Ghandhi, Gautama's religion was a perfect agnosticism, which did not and could not look beyond Nirvāņa; because as per Gautama's theory there is nothing permanent in man, that every particle mental, spiritual or physical, perishes every moment and new aggregates comes into existence by reason of the influence left by karma or action of the former aggregates. Everything is momentary, and if a man leads a perfectly holy life he would not collect new karma, which will lead him into new birth; and therefore the aggregates of which he is composed come to an end, without new aggregates coming into existence. So although Gautama might not have said that the future state after
V. R. Gandhi (VRG), “The Systems of Indian Philosophy", P-107 30 lbid, P-107 31 Ibid, 110
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