Outlines of Jainism

Author(s): J L Jaini, F W Thomas
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Page 75

METAPHYSICS: VII. KINDS OF KARMA
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upon the will of God, who may be guided by what His beloved Muhammad or His Son Christ may interpose. To Jainism this simple and anthropomorphic doctrine seems unsatisfactory. There is double intermediation and arbitrariness in it; a sinful life can be purged of its bitterness and sorrow by the simple intermediation of Christ or Muhammad; and the working of the divine law is arbitrary, for no one can know the results of his actions till the Day of Judgment is over! Jainism denies both intermediation and forgiveness ; of what we have done we must bear the consequences. It is not fate, nor even predestination ; but it is the ever continuous balancing of the different accounts that we keep with the forces of life. There can be no mistake, no suppression, and no evasion. The credit and the debit side go on antomatically; and whatever is due to us is paid us ungrudgingly and without demand. The continuity cannot be broken by change of house : the debts of London are not extinguished by going to Berlin; nor is liquidation suspended till the Day of Judgment. The karmas are not extinguished simply because we give up the body called A. When we are dead as A, the karmas must still bear full fruits. The karmas constitute the karmic body; and it drags us into another state of being, it may be the ethereal structure of a god's luminous and plastic embodiment, or the grosser and limited frame of a human or a subhuman being. The last day of Jainism is the day when the last karma falls off; matter bids good-bye to the soul, and the jīva enters nirvāņa. It is a day of perfect calm, of serene being, of everlasting happiness.