________________
154
: Śramana, Vol 59, No. 4/October-December 2008
4. Jainism fully agrees with Sartre positional and non-positional consciousness, as it maintains consciousness / cognition is self and other revealing entity.
5. Jaina philosophers accept nothingness through the theory of non-absolutism, which accepts being and non-being as simultaneously true of all real. It does exist taking present state of being into consideration, and it exists considering future state of being.
According to Sartre man's existence is absurd because of his contingency finds no external justification. His projects are absurd because they are directed toward an unattainable goal (the "desire to become God" or to be simultaneously the free for itself and the absolute in itself, which is complete and neither active nor passive). Here Jainism provides the way to come out of this absurdity and illuminates the way of trinity-right knowledge, right attitude and right conduct through which one can be God. This insists that consciousness desire to become God is not absurd. Consciousness in its pure state is itself God, which is neither active nor passive. Thus there exists a possibility in consciousness of Jainism, where all possibilities come to an end, where as for Sartrean For-itself no such possibility is possible. For Sartre, only possible characteristic of For-itself is to be in mode of possibilities the possibilities, which has no end.
Reference:
1. Being and Nothingness of Sartre, tr. H. Barnes, Methuen, London, 1958, p. 222.
2. Uttarājjhayaṇa, XXXVI, 2. ed. by Acharya Mahāprajña, Jain Vishva Bharati, Ladnun, IIIrd edn., (Ist edn. 1967, IInd edn. 1993), 2003.
3. Jain Siddhānta Dīpikā of Acharya Tulsi, 3.79, trans. By Satkari Mookerji in the name of Illuminator of Jaina Tenets, Jaina Vishwa Bharati, Ladnun, 1985
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
