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Jainism vs Atheism • Dr. Om Prakash Sharma, M.A., Ph. D. (Vaishali)
It has often been suggested that Jainism is an atheistic system of thought. The basis of this assumption can be found in the fact that while God is popularily described as being a creator and ruler, He is not so described in the Jain books. Jainism maintains that from the standpoint of phenomenal Naya the universe is ever changing and transitory, but from the standpoint of Nonmenal Naya, according to which the universe is taken as one undivided whole of inter-related reals, It is self-existent and permanent, And because it is self-existent and permanent therefore, it is not an effect of some anterior cause working from behind the universe. There is no creation of new substance or destruction of the old. It is only a fusion of elements in a new form. The substances by their interaction produce new sets of qualities. So there is no god necessary for creation or destruction. Coming into existence and ceasing to exist, things have, because of their attributes and modes. Thus in Jainism development of the world is rendered possible by the doctrine of the eternity of being and interaction of substances.
Such being the trend of thought the Jain philosophy leaves no room whatsoever for an iron-willed capricious God in the Jain scheme of the universe. The Jainas hold that a correct understanding of the true principles of causality and phenomenology dispenses with the necessity of any divine intervention in the affairs of the world. To believe in all-ruling extra-mundane God is to hide the ignorance of the true principles of causality under a splendid display of deceptive reasonings.
Such a doctrine may indeed strike curious and atheistic to many. But the Jainas will never allow themselves to be branded as atheists, though Jainism acknowledges no personal God, knowing Him neither as Creater, Father, or Friend, Indeed there is no more deadly insult that one could level at a Jaina than to call him a nastika or atheist. Some people like Mrs. Sinclair Stevenson (The Heart of Jainism, p. 298) may take it as a strange mystery in Jainism but this is fact that charge of atheism cannot be laid at the door of Jainism. When
Mahavira Jayanti Smarika, 76
4-11
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