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consciousness and unconscious matter thus pervading everything noticed in this Universe. On the basis of this finding, about two thousand five hundred years ago, not with the help of any laboratory testings but by sheer analytical logic, the Jaina seers saw the life force not only in plants and vegetables but also in so called inanimate matters such as earth, water and air.
They went even further in their analysis and sub-categorised the above two categories, examined their characteristics and the role which they play in shaping different life currents and tried to answer almost every question posed above in a manner, not only rational but logical also.
They concluded that Jiva ( spirit ) and Ajīva ( matter ) are eternal, uncreated, unending and perpetual. There is a constant interplay between the two, resulting in bewildering cosmic manifestations in material, psychic and emotional spheres around us. This led them to the theories of transmigration and rebirth. Change, but not the total annihilation of the spirit and the matter, is the basic postulate of Jaina philosophy, and it is the same thing which science teaches us when it says that matter is undestructible
Theory of 'Karma’ came as a natural deduction from the theory of causation, just as science recognises the fact that every effect is the result of some cause.
Thus the Jainism considers the whole universe as a great cosmic mechanism with its own self-propelling force, uncreated and uncontrolled by any super-imposed outside force. Its unitary character can be properly identified only by recognising and giving proper place to each of its parts. This leads a logical mind to the theory of total Non-violence-Ahimsa. For if you believe the universe to be a unitary whole, a self-propelling mechanism, wherein every part of that smallest to the biggest, has to play its role, you cannot do anything to destroy even a nut or bolt of that machine, without damaging it, as well as your own self. To know this mechanism, to understand
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