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PRABUDDH JEEVAN
JULY 2015
JAIN MYTHOLOGY
ENLIGHTEN YOURSELF BY SELF STUDY OF JAINOLOGY
LESSON - 7 (1)
O DR. KAMINI GOGRI In the following article we will study about the sev- mother's words, the little girl hears her tone and acenth topic: Jain mythology.
quires from both the basic blocks for a whole structure THE MOST PROFOUND human questions are the of value and meaning. Only when she understands how ones that give rise to creation myths: Who are we? to place and esteem each of the things can she make Why are we here? What is the purpose of our lives her own decisions about them. Only then can she know and our deaths? How should we understand our place which is good to sniff, which to jump and splash in, and in the world, in time and space? Thses are central ques- which to put away in a treasure box. And, while many tions of value and meaning, and, while they are influ- of these attitudes toward reality are conveyed by parenced by issues of fact, they are not in themselves ents, others come from the culture at large, from edufactual questions; rather, they involve attitudes towards cation, laws, entertainment, and ritual. In a society as facts and reality. As such, the issues that they raise diverse and rapidly changing as ours, attitudes from are addressed most directly by myths. Myths proclaim different and occasionally conflicting myths are promulsuch attitudes toward reality. They organize the way gated simultaneously. Even so, they are often accepted we percieve facts and understand ourseleves and the without question, by adults as well as children, as "the world.
way things are," as "facts." Thus, because of the way While all cultures have specific myths through which in which domestic myths are transmitted, people often they respond to these kinds of questions, it is in their never learn that they are myths; people become subcreation myths that the most basic answers are to be merged in their view-points, prisoners of their own trafound. Not only are creation myths the most compre- ditions. They readily confuse attitudes toward reality hensive of mythic statements, addressing themselves (proclamations of value) with reality itself (statements to the widest range of questions of meaning, but they of fact). Failing to see their own myths as myths, they are also the most profound. They deal with first causes, consider all other myths false. They do not underswtand the essences of what their cultures percieve reality to that the truth of all myths is existential and not necesbe. In them people set forth their primary understand- sarily theoretical. That is, they forget that myths are ing of man and the world, time and space. And in them true to the extent they are effective. In a sense, myths cultures express most directly, before they become are self-fulfilling propheceis: they create facts of the involved in the fine point of sophisticated dogma, their values they propound. Thinking we are superior to other understanding of and awe before the absolute reality, creatures, for instance facts out of the values they prothe most basic fact of being. It is no accident that cul- pound. Thinking we are superior to other creatures, for tures think their creation myths the most sacred, for instance, we set ourselves up as such and use them these myths are the ground on which all later myths ruthlessly. People that think of themselves as brothers stand. In them members of the group (and now outsid- to the beats (beats live with them in harmony and reers) can percieve the main elements of entire struc- spect.) As circumstances change and perceptions altures of value and meaning. Usually, we learn onlyter (often, as is the case with our feelings about the covertly and piecemeal of the attitudes these myths ecosystem, because an old myth has been so successannounce openly and wholly. Watch any parent with a ful that it produces a new reality and thereby engensmall child, and you will see such attitudes being trans- ders a new attitude toward it), cultures constantly remitted and received almost unconsciously. Values de vise their myths. rived from the myths are virtually integral to speech it- There are two approaches to learning about the hisself. "What's that?" asks the child. "And this? How does tory of Jainism. The first approach relies on a body of that smell? How does it feel? How does this taste?" knowledge created by various scholars based on di"Be gentle, that's a daisy," her mother answers. "And rect or in direct evidence, such as, excavated structhat's a puddle. Watch out, that's a piece of glass; and tures and idols, inscriptions, original documents, and look, there's a shiny new penny". And, along with her references made in authentic literature outside Jainism.
