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THE PLACE OF JAINISM IN INDIAN THOUGHT
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Both Mahāvīra and Buddha must be understood as Masters of Yoga, who laid the foundations of Indian Psychology-showing the way towards spiritual perfection, raising human nature to a higher level and demonstrating the possibility of attaining Enlightenment which means cosmic consciousness, self-identification with all life, with the Universe in the service of the highest ideal ever attained in history : Selflessness.
The Jaina System of philosophy has developed a theory of Karma of immense interest : according to Jainism, the soul is originally pure, but it becomes contaminated by material particles through contact with the world. The task of the Jaina saint is to liberate his soul from all these particles through absolute renunciation and to recover the purity of his soul. Purity and perfection are the ideals which India borrowed from the Jaina tradition. Only the methods vary, but the ideal is the same.
Modern psychology refuses to assent to this contempt of all matter. Human nature is considered to-day as one single entity, divided into body and mind, but trying to integrate the two aspects of man into a harmonious whole. Like the Christian doctrine, Hindu thought separated body and mind as two incompatible entities and looked upon the soul as a slave of physiology to be liberated by religious training. The modern view of mankind does not accept this radical division of the material and the spiritual. Nevertheless the ideal of spiritual freedom, freedom from all the contingencies of the industrial civilization which have enslaved the Western world, makes the study of Indian thought very instructive for modern man eager to disentagle his inner life from the shackles of materialism. Ancient India has proved the potentiality of such perfect spiritual freedom, even if we concede that only exceptional individuals of immense will-power have ever attained the highest form of Liberation of the spirit.
The Jainas themselves recognize that the 24th Tîrthamkara was the last in this cycle of earthly existence and that it is impossible today to attain the highest spiritual level. The Jaina saints with all their rigorous discipline are still in bondage to physiology, although they demonstrate every day the possibility of reducing such bondage to the absolute minimum. Mahāvīra is essentially interesting from the psychological point of view as the incarnation of Will Power, Spiritual Will in its purest form.
Ahimsă is a principle of universal love, for the single purpose of transforming human nature from the animal plane into a spiritual sphere such
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