________________
The Spirit of Mahavira's Teachings
and exceeds the categories of change and diversity on the one hand and those of Eternity and integrality on the other. Equally so is the case in regard to the conventional dichotomy of matter and spirit. There is no affirmation of either matter or spirit to the exclusion of the other. Both are ontologically ultimate. The two do not constitute two non-communicating realms of being as in some systems, with the insoluble riddles of absolute dualism. There is inter-action through the semi-material and semi-spiritual operations of the force of Karma. Nor is this commingling of matter and spirit an indissoluble linkage. In the Spirit's march to perfection emancipation from matter is envisaged as an achievable and desirable possibility. There is the mundane life of vyavahara and also the transcendent life of paramartha. There is no laboured rationalization of untenable extremes.
If Jaina metaphysics excludes anything, it excludes the postulate of God conceived as the Creator of the world and the Saviour of individual souls. It is to be noted that in this, the system runs counter to the sentiments of popular religion and the prevailing Theistic temper of Spiritual movements. Whatever the basic spirit of accommodation, Jainism has maintained a firm stand against Theism. A clear understanding of the philosophical motive behind the attitude is necessary. That the world is not explicable in terms of its immanent laws and alsс those furnished by the operation of Karma is a presupposition of the Creatorhypothesis. God is the ultimate irrationality' for explaining the Cosmos, in case the latter is not self-explanatory. But Jainism holds in consonance with the scientific philosophy of nature that it is intrinsically intelligible and needs no supernaturalistic explanation. Nor does the 'saving of souls' require the grace of a transcendent being, for each soul contains in itself the possibilities of the highest life. If its abuse of its opportunities has brought about its shrinkage of powers, nothing other than the free and rightful utilization of its inherent resources can bring about its legitimate expansion. “This is the moral of the Law of Karma. It accords well with the contemporary Existentialist assertion of human freedom to the point of abandoning the dogma of God as incompatible with man's self-determination. Ultimately, therefore, the anti-theistic stand of Jainism springs from its Scientific Concept of nature and
