Philosophy and Psychology of Jainas

Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Z_Selected_Speeches_of_V_R_Gandhi_002018.pdf

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are people who entertain this idea. So to these energies in our primitive state we are liable to attribute personality, and after a long course of development we symbolize our thoughts in the form of pictures, and explain them in that way to make them more intelligible to others. In the ancient times there was not rain but a rainer, not thunder but a thunderer, and in that way personality is attributed, or living consciousness and character, to those forces. There may be conscious entities in these forces as there may be living entities on the planets, but these forces themselves are not living entities. This, however, expresses the idea in the beginning; these energies were classed as creative, preservative and destructive, and these three entities were considered to be component parts of one entity called Brahma by the Hindus. Really, creation in this is in the sense of emanation, preservation is used in the sense of preserving the form, and destruction in the sense of destroying the form. The idea of matter is something that can be handled or perceived by the senses, and the energies must be material energies, as cohesion, magnetism, electricity, gravitation; but to consider these God would be the most materialistic idea, and therefore the Jainas discard this idea so far as the Godhead or Godlike character is concerned. They of course admit the existence of these energies, that they are indeed to be found everywhere, but they are subject to fixed laws which cannot be interfered with by any person, not that these energies consciously influence our destinies with regard to good and evil. To say that they do
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