Outlines of Jainism

Author(s): S Gopalan
Publisher: Wiley Eastern Private Limited New Delhi

Page 49

JAINISM
God. In fact this was one of the characteristic features of the Sāṁkhya system and the system itself is referred to as “god-less' (nirīśvara). Many of the sūtras maintain that God's existence cannot be proved.5 The Bhātta school of the Mīmāṁsakas similarly denies the existence of a Supreme God.
Let us now consider the Jaina repudiation of God's existence. Jainism, unlike the theistic schools does not accept the existence of a supreme creator and sustainer of the world. The system maintains that the world is without a beginning and an end. In this we see the most consistent theory of realism, it being maintained that each and every one of the categories is eternally real and hence that logically they are in no need of postulating a god who is the supreme cause and ruler of the world. Acārya Jīnasena asks : “If God created the universe, where was he before creating it ? If he was not in space, where did he localise the universe ? How could a formless or immaterial substance like God create the world of matter ? If the material is to be taken as existing, why not take the world itself as unbegun ? If the creator was uncreated, why not suppose the world to be itself self-existing ?” Then he continues : "Is God self-sufficient ? If he is, he need not have created the world. If he is not, like an ordinary potter, he would be incapable of the task, since, by hypothesis, only a perfect being could produce it......"?
The Jaina philosopher pertinently asks: "If every existent object must have a maker, that maker himself would be explained by another -- his maker, etc. To escape from this vicious circle we have to assume that there is one uncreated, self-explaining cause, god. But then, if it is maintained that one being can be self-subsistent, why not say that there are many others also who are uncreated and eternal similarly ?” Hence “it is not necessary to assume the existence of any first cause of the universe."8 S. Radhakrishnan states the Jaina point of view thus : “The Jaina view is that the whole universe of being, of mental and material factors has existed from all eternity, undergoing an infinite number of revolutions produced by the powers of nature without the intervention of any external deity. The diversities of the world are traced to the five
51, 92-94; V. 2-12; 46, 126 & 127; VI. 64 & 65 6 Sec 16 7 Adi Purāņa, Chap. III (Cited in C.J. Shah, op. cit., p. 35) 8 Hemacandra, Syadvādamañjarī, Verse 6