What is Jainism

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Champat Rai Jain

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RELIGION AND COMPARATIVE RELIGION own desiring nature, and can be dispersed by the total elimination of all desires for the enjoyment of the things of the world. In other words, matter does not possess the power to assail and cannot assail the soul unless the soul itself turn to it in the first instance. For even such intimate contact as that of food on the tongue will not give rise to its taste unless the soul turn to it; for when attention is exclusively engrossed elsewhere the food on the tongue remains unnoticed, but with attention the relish of every morsel is experienced and felt and enjoyed thoroughly. The difference between the two states is merely one of attention, so that when the soul attends to the bit of food in the mouth its taste is felt, and when it attends to something else knowledge is had of that something else but not of the food, that is being crunched and mashed in the mouth.
This brief survey is sufficient in my opinion to give us a general insight into the nature of the soul, and to explain why it is deprived of its natural Divinity, and how that Supreme status can be attained. Now, I ought to state that the Jaina teaching is not confined to what may be termed a metaphysical speculation about things unseen. It is actually grounded, as all scientific knowledge always is, on the practical experience of a very large body of men, who have at various times in the past been benefited by it. The Tirthamkaras, amongst others, are the souls that first benefited themselves by the teaching, and then, after attaining to fulness and perfection with its aid, taught the doctrine to others. Every statement of the Jaina System, thus, is actually founded upon the practical experience of men who knew what they were talking about. This is the reason why theory and practice agree so marvelously in the Jaina Faith, and go hand in hand, so to speak. It is interesting to know that the Jainas maintain and have always maintained that wherever there is a fact it must be capable of a scientific treatment and explanation, and that what is not thus capable of a scientific treatment is really not a fact but a fiction of some kind composed by incompetent men.
Jainas further maintain that the real basis of religious instruction in all religions is the scientific teaching of Men who attained the Perfection of Gods, namely, of the Tirthamkaras, but it was