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JAINISM: A THEISTIC PHILOSOPHY “GOD IN JAINISM”
stains of Karman; that is the means of liberation, but not any mystic syllable nor mystic practices.
So, Śamkarapostulates Māyā to explain origination of cosmic illusion while Avidyā (nescience) the individual. However freedom is the goal. But this freedom is only through knowledge (Jñānāt-eva-tu-kaivalyam)," without knowledge there is no emancipation (Řte-Jñānānnamuktih). The purpose of man (is effected) through the mere knowledge of Brahman thus Bādarāyaṇa opines. He, who knows the self, overcomes grief. He, who knows that highest Brahman, becomes even Brahman. He, who knows Brahman, attains the highest state. Mokșa is the absence of the false knowledge says Padmapāda.
The Jaina term for Avidyā is Mithyātva. Mithyātva (perversity) and Mithyā-darśana (perverted view) lie at the root of all evil, and whatever misery there is in the life of a soul is ultimately due to it. It is the darkest period of a soul's life when there is unhindered working of this Mithyātva. The soul (ātman) gropes in the darkness formulates wrong views about the truth and treads upon many paths, none leading to the region of light. Mithyātva has no beginning in time and it is there from all eternity. The existence of self or ātman is an ultimate fact and existence of delusion coeval with it equally an ultimate fact to which no question of origination can be relevant. The Jaina philosophers have accepted mithyātva as beginning lesson basis of uncontradicted experience and also because no beginning can be postulated without self-contradiction. In course of time, the soul attains purification, and samyak-darśana (right attitude) dawns upon it, which is a kind of purified state of consciousness that enables the soul to realize and comprehend the things as they are. Samyak-jñāna (right knowledge) presupposes
34 Paramātma-prakāśa of Sri Yogindudeva, by Dr. A.N. Upadhye, 1960, P-14, (109-123) 3Dr. Ramjee Singh, “Jaina Perspective in philosophy and Religion”, 1993, P-89 & 90, Malkani G.R., Vedantic Epistemology, P.3 and Rgveda also, Brahmasūtra Šāṁkara Bhāsya, III, IV.1, Chāndogya Upanişad, III.1 and Mundaka Upanişad, III.2.9 "Dr. Ramjee Singh, Ibid, Malkani, G.R., Vedantic Epistemology, P-3
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