Prolegomena to Prakritica et Jainica

Author(s): Satyaranjan Banerjee
Publisher: Asiatic Society

Page 72

BANERJEE : JAIN RELIGION IN A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 55
doubt regarding the existence of Hell. Acalabhrātā's doubt was regarding the existence of punya and pāpa. Metāryas doubt was regarding the existence of the other world; whereas Prabhāsa's doubt was whether there could be anything like Mokşa.
These questions of the eleven Gañadharas are of a crucial nature, and ultimately formed the basic profound philosophical doctrines of Jainism. In course of time, the followers of Mahāvīra developed these ideas in different ways by their incisive intellectual analysis. At a much later time, people posed with such questions like-what is sat? What is the ultimate goal of a thing? - so on and so forth. It was in the 3rd century A.D., a philosopher called Umāsvāti, in his book Tattvārthasūtra or Tattvārthādhigamasūtra, first defined 'sat', based on the canonical literature of the Śvetambaras. That which is reality is 'sat'— that which exists. It has 'utpāda' (origin), vyava (deviation from the original) and dhrauvya (permanent). So in Jainism we consider 'sat'-reality as having three points. That is, it has an origin and a deviation, but at the same time it is fixed.
The question that comes to our mind from the above is how can one thing be fixed, is changed ? If it is fixed, it cannot be changed, and if it changes, it cannot be fixed. Let me give you an example. Let us take the case of a seed of a plant. When you plant the seed, it sprouts out after a few days and a little later becomes a tree with branches, leaves etc. In course of time, it decays and dies. So it has three stages, but the basic seed is the same, it never dies. Let us take another example of clay-mrttikā. A potter makes a pot out of clay and when the pot is destroyed, it once again turns into earth, so, in fact, the clay is never destroyed. It remains only mud; that which is made out of clay is destroyed. This was the idea put forth by Umāsvāti in the 3rd century A.D.
These ideas over a period of time became their