Studies in Jainism

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

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STUDIES IN JAINISM
and the like. According to it, there is, intrinsically, Godhood in every individual, and this becomes manifest in the state of emancipation. The soul which has manifested its Godhood becomes the object of worship of the common people. The God of the Yoga school is also only an object of worship and not the Creator or Destroyer. But there is basic difference between the conceptions of the Jaina and the Yoga schools. The God of the Yoga school is eternally free and was never in bondage, and thus belongs to a separate category from that of the ordinary souls, whereas the God of Jainism is not such. Jainism believes that every competent spiritual aspirant can attain to Godhood, inasmuch as it is capable of being achieved by proper spiritual exertion, and that all the emancipated souls are equally the objects of worship as Gods.
ŚRUTA
The science of scriptural record consists in the faithful compilation of the old as well as the up-to-date thoughts of other thinkers as also the thoughts founded on one's own experience. The object of this science is that no thought, or way of thought, which aims at Truth, should be despised or ignored, and therefore the science has gradually developed along with the growth of new lines of thought. It is because of this that in the same context where formerly only the sad-advaita (non-dualism of the existent) of the Samkhya was mentioned as an instance of the sai naya (standpoint of the universal) in the texts, in la times, after the development of the thought of Brahmadvaita (non-dualism of Brahman), this latter thought also found place as an instance of the same naya (standpoint). Similarly, where formerly the old Buddhist doctrine of momentariness was given as an instance of the jusutranaya (standpoint of the immediate present), in later times, after the development of Mahāyānism, all the four famous Buddhist schools, viz. the two Hinayana schools of Vaibhāṣika and Sautrāntika, as well as the two Mahāyā schools of Yogācāra and Madhyamika, the latter two upholding momentary consciousness (vijñāna) alone,