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THE WORLD OF JAINISM
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Ahimsa, Satya, Asteya, Brahmacharya and Aparigraha are accepted by all the three religions as the basis to spiritual discipline, but the emphasis and practice in them differ.
Jain philosophy is summed up in Nava-tatva and Sadadravya. Common to both the categories is the dualism of soul and matter. Asrava and Bandha are subject matter of psychology; Samvara and Nirjara are subjects of ethics; Punya and Papa are results of good and bad actions; and Moksha is the summum bonum of life. In Sada-dravya Time and Space are regarded as real and also Rest and Motion. These are really concepts of science. They are all characteristics of the phenomenal world. The ultimate reality is beyond time and space, beyond rest and motion. It is transcendent, immutable and eternal.
Complete dualism of Soul and Matter, and pluralism of Souls even after liberation, are matters of philosophysical and metaphysical discourse. Some kind of unity, which must be spiritual, appears more probable. There must be a spiritual power maintaining and regulating the whole universe. Soul and matter, if utterly disparate will not be connected so closely as they are in embodied existence. Subject and object are different, but they merge in knowledge. If matter were totally different from soul, both would remain entirely separate and soul cannot even gain knowledge of matter. The fact that soul, not only gains knowledge of matter but is able to discover its laws and control the physical universe, should lead us to an inference that there is some kind of affinity or unity between the two, and that there is a unity which transcends this dualism.
Those who accept that Mahavira attained omniscienceperfect knowledge and that what he is said to have known is the whole truth and complete knowledge about ultimate reality, will resent any attempt to raise any adverse comment about the metaphysical system which is associated with Jainism. To them, any other idea is Mithyatva; to them, any other system is Mithyatva. Mahavira's teaching is considered to be preserved in the Agamas. Digambars reject them. They were written eight centuries after Mahavira's Nirvana. The works of great Acharyas, Swetamber and Digambara, cannot be said to be revelations of any perfect being.
I believe that the ethical and spiritual teach Mahavira and his path-way Sadhana-marga to self realisation are profound, borne out of great and highest spiritual experience and have eternal value. The metaphysical system which is associated with him bears re-examination. The ethical and spiritual teachings and the metaphysical system need not be made inseparable. Even the ethical and spiritual teachings, eternal and of abiding value as they are in their basic approach, bear re-examination and re-application from time to time. Jain
