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JAINISM: A THEISTIC PHILOSOPHY "GOD IN JAINISM"
God may be regarded as the cause, the creator, the sustainer, the destroyer and, therefore, also as an Omnipotent and Omniscient being (Sarvajña, sarva= everything jña-knowing) one who knows everything. He (God) then appears as possessed of all these qualities (saguna). In Śamkara's philosophy God is called Saguna Brahman or Isvara and He is the object of worship.
The purport of the Vedanta philosophy is: all being is Brahma, nothing can be except Brahma, while all that exist is an illusory, not a real, modification of Brahma and is caused by name and form. When the true knowledge arises everything becomes known as Brahma only. When asked-whence the names and forms and whence the phantasmagoria of unreality, the Vedantist has but one answer, it is simply due to (Avidya) nescience. And, again, the question remain whence this nescience. The Vedantist is satisfied with the conviction that for a time we are as a matter of fact nescient and what he cares for chiefly is to find out, not how that nescience arose but how it can be removed.
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Svami Bharati Tirtha, a famous Vedāntist says about removing ignorance: "Neglecting the unreal creation consisting of mere name and form, one should meditate on Brahma and should ever practice internal as well as external concentration, fixing one's mind on the thought "I am Brahma" which is described in Vedas as self-existent, eternal, all consciousness and pleasure, self-illumined and unique in itself."
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(d) Jaina View of God in Comparison with the View of Vedanta According to the Jainas the universe is constituted of two fundamental principles of Jīva (living substances) and ajīva (the non-living substances). In the Vedanta philosophy the universe or the phenomenal world is only an appearance (asatya) while Brahman, the ultimate reality is the only (satya) real.
19VRG, "The systems of Indian philosophy", P-91
20Ibid, P-91
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