Religion and Philosophy of the Jainas

Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Jain International Ahmedabad

Page 80

INTRODUCTORY
47 in the last analysis. There is nothing in the universe but substance, but there are many kinds of substances. Existence cannot be separated from substance. We are dualists. We say there is spirit and matter, while the positivists and monists in this country' say there is but one substance. Theosophists say spirit and matter are opposite poles of the same substance. We say no; spirit can never be matter. Matter is known by the senses, spirit only by spirit. The Greeks said, “Know thyself by thyself.”
While Vedantism says that in reality nothing exists apart from Brahma, that the phenomenal world is an illusory phantom, that the only reality is noumenon-the Brahma, Jainism says that both the noumenon and the phenomenon are real, the one cannot be separated from the other. Reality is not in the one, if considered alone and by itself, not in the other if considered alone and by itself. The one as well as the other is a part of the reality. So in the Jaina philosophy, the existence of both spirit and matter is postulated, both of them existing as separate entities. So far as both of them exist as entities, they may be classed under one category of existence, the substance-one the material, the other the spiritual. Nine principles
The Sruta Dharma (Jaina philosophy) inquires into the nature of nine principles, six kinds of living beings and four states of existence. Of the nine principles, the first is soul. According to the Jaina view soul is that element which knows, thinks and feels. It is in fact the divine element in the living being. The Jaina thinks that phenomena of knowledge, feeling; thinking and willing are conditioned on something, and that that something must be as real as anything can be. This soul is in a certain sense different from knowledge and in another sense identical with it. So far as one's knowledge is concerned, the soul is identical with it, but so far as some one else's knowledge is concerned, it is different from it. The true nature of soul is right knowledge, right faith and right conduct. The soul, so long as it is subject to transmigration, is undergoing evolution and ivolu
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