Studies in Jainism

Author(s): Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture Culcutta
Publisher: Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture Culcutta

Page 76

SOME FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF JAINISM
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of the universe and its space tallies in many respects with the conceptions of the Samkhya-Yoga, the Purānas, and the Buddhist schools.
The Jains, like the Nyāya-Vaiścşika, are atomists and are not, like the Särnkhya-Yoga, the upholders' of the principle of one Prakrti as the basis of the world. But the nature of an atom of the Jains has more similarity with the nature of the Prakrti of the Samkhya-Yoga than with the nature of the atom of the Nyāya-Vaiseșika. The atom of the Jains undergoes transformations like the Prakrti of the Samkhya-Yoga, and is not absolutely unchanging like the atom of the Nyāya-Vaiseșika. It is therefore held that, even as the one uniform Prakrti of the Sārkhya becomes the ground of the manifold physical creation of earth, water, fire, air, ether, etc., exactly so the atom of the Jains can transform itself into various forms such as earth, water, fire, etc. The Jaina school does not agree with the NyāyaVaiseșika in admitting that the material atoms of earth, water, etc. belong to fundamentally different types. Another basic difference is that the atom of the Jains is so subtle, as compared with the atom of the Vaisesika, that, ultimately, it becomes as unmanifest (avyakta) as the Prakrti of the Sāmkhya. The Jaina doctrine of the infinity of atoms is not very dissimilar to the doctrine of plurality of praktis of the old Samkhyas, corresponding to the doctrine of the plurality of purusas.?
The Jaina system also, like the Samkhya-Yoga, the Mímāmsaka, and the like, regards the universe as beginningless and endless from the standpoint of the chain of unbroken succession. It does not believe, like the Paurānika or the Vaiseșika systems, in the periodic dissolution and recreation of the universe. Therefore, there is no place in Jainism for an independent person like God as Creator or Destroyer. Jainism believes that every individual self is responsible for its own creation, that is to say, the creation of its own karma and its results, such as the body
7. Cf. Maulika-Samkhyā hi ātmānam ātmānań prati prthak
pradhānam vadanti; uttare tu Samkhyāḥ sarvatmasvapi ekam nityam pradhānañ iti prapannah (Saddarsana-samuccaya, Gunaratna-ţikā, p. 99).