Selected Speeches of V R Gandhi

Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Vallabhsuri Smarak Nidhi Godiji Jain Derasar Mumbai

Page 19

I shall now refer to the four states of existence. They are naraka, tiryac, manusya and deva. Naraka is the lowest state of existence, that of being a denizen of hell; tiryac is the next, that of having an earth body, water body, fire body, wind body, vegetable, of having two, three or four organs, animals and birds. The third is manușya, of being a man; and the fourth is deva, that of being a denizen of the celestial world. The highest state of existence is the Jaina Mokşa, the apotheosis in the sense that the mortal being by the destruction of all Karma attains the highest spiritualism, and the soul being severed from all connection with matter regains its purest state and becomes divine.
Having briefly stated the principal articles of Jaina belief, I come to the grand questions the answers to which are the objects of all religious inquiry and the substance of all creeds.
What is the origin of the universe ?
This involves the question of God. Gautama, the Buddha, forbids inquiry into the beginning of things. In the Brahmanical literature bearing on the constitution of cosmos frequent reference is made to the days and nights of Brahmā, the periods of Manvantara and the periods of Pralaya. But the Jainas, leaving all symbolical expressions aside, distinctly reaffirm the view previously promulgated by the previous hierophants, that matter and soul are eternal and cannot be created. You can affirm existence of a thing from one point of view, deny it from another and affirm both existence and non-existence with reference to it at different times. If you should