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306
Lord Mahâvîra
Jainism "leads to monistic idealism but so far as the Jainas shrink rom it, they are untrue to their own logic." Much of this criticism s the outcome of an inadequate appreciation of the Jaina stand by the Ekantins (or Vedantins) in whose view, at the beginning there is the Absolute and the end-process is the merging with the Absolute. The Jainas, who hold no notion of God, and according to whom the jivas (beings) are innumerable and eternal, do not make the end-process merge with the Absolute. The Jaina notion of pluralistic relativism has received added support from Einstein's theory of 'relativity' according to which, in the words of Hans Reichenback, "relativity does not mean an abandonment of truth; it only means that truth can be formulated in various ways."
The greatest contribution of Jainism, not only from the standpoint of the Jainas, but from that of that entire humanity, is the instead of bringing God to the level of man, as theistic religions often do, Jainism looks on man as God when his inherent powers are in full development. It is not the Son of God, a Messiah or an Avatar, but a Man-God, an Arhat, an ideal man that is the ideal of human beings. To attain this ideal man-hood, Jainism does not believe in God's intervention or mercy; rather it holds that karma by itself is adequate to explain the whole experience and thus to impress upon the individual his complete responsibility for what he does. In other words, it prescribes a spiritual independence for man but simultaneously it makes his responsibility coextensive with it. So what man will actually be, whether rising to liberation or stepping back to lower forms of earthly existence, depends exclusively on man's own effort which none else determines and for which none else is responsible.
