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Introduction
43
(I. 7). It is these five Paramagurus, i.e, the great spiritual preceptors, that are to be saluted, and to whom the prayers are to be offered (I. 11, II. 168).
The Conception of Divinity Explained-Ātman to Paramātman is a course of spiritual evolution; and it is the duty of every aspiring soul to see that it reaches the stage of Paramātman. There are various stages on the path worked out according to the destruction or partial destruction of different Karmas. Paramātman is the God not as a creative agency, but merely as an ideal to all the aspirants. Paramātman is latent in the Ātman, therefore the Ātman must always meditate on the nature of Paramātman that the potent powers thereof might be fully manifested. Paramātmans form a class, all equal, with no classes among themselves. But a devotee, when he is studying this course of evolution, deifies first a monk, or monks as a class, who has given up the world and its ties and who has completely absorbed himself in the study of and meditation on Ātman; secondly, the teacher who gives the aspirant lesson in the realization of Paramātman; thirdly, the president of an ascetic community; fourthly, an Arhat, a Tirthankara, who has destroyed the four Ghāti-Karmas, who is an omniscient teacher and who attains liberation and becomes a Siddha at the end of the present life; and lastly the Siddha, the perfect soul, that has reached the spiritual goal. It is to these five collectively or to Arhat, or to Siddha, that the Jainas offer reverence. According to Jaina dogma the number of Arhats in each cycle of time is limited, i.e., twenty-four. A soul can attain Siddha-hood without being an Arhat. Every Arhat becomes a Siddha, but not that every Siddha was an Arhat. Arhat or Tirthankara in his life, just preceding liberation where he becomes a Siddha, devotes some of his time to teach the path of liberation to the aspiring souls. That is why the world of aspirants feels more devotion to Arhats. Neither Arhat nor Siddha has on him the responsibility of creating, supporting and destroying the world. The aspirants receive no boons; no favours and no cures from him by way of gifts from the divinity. The aspiring souls pray to him, worship him and meditate on him as an example, as a model, as an ideal that they too might reach the same condition.
5. The World and Liberation or Samsara and Moksa-Since infinite time the soul is dwelling in Saṁsāra experiencing great misery in the four grades of existence (I. 9-10). The association of Karmas has no beginning, and all the while heavy Karmas are leading the soul astray (1. 59, 78). Developing false attitudes the soul incurs Karmic bondage and wanders in Samsära always feeding itself on false notions of reality (I. 77, etc.). It is the Karman that creates various limitations for the soul and brings about 1 See Davvasangaha 50-54, also commentary thereon by S. C. Ghoshal. SBJ. vol. I,
pp. 112 etc.
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