World of Philosophy

Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan

Page 617

Manatunga, Hemcandra and many others. While worshiping Lord Siva the Jaina pontiff Hemcandra says: "I worship those who have destroyed attachment and aversion, the seeds of birth and death, be they Bramha, Visnu, Siva or Jina". It is important that though other as false. This liberalism of the Jainas on the methods of worship can be supported by the legends of the previous lives of Mahavira. It is said that Mahavira in his previous existences, was many times ordinated as a monk of other sects, where he practiced austerities and attained heaven.
As for scriptures, the Jainas outlook is like wise liberal. They firmly believe that a false scripture (Mithya-Śruta) may be a true scripture (Samyak-Śruta) for a person of right attitude; and true scripture may turn false for a person of perverse attitude. It is not the scripture but the attitude of the follower which makes it true or false. It is the vision. of the interpreter and practitioners that counts. In the Nandisutra this standpoint is clearly explained. Thus we can say that the Jainas are neither rigid nor narrowminded in this regard.
References of Religious Tolerance in Jaina Works
References to religious tolerance are abundant in Jainas history. Jaina thinkers have consistently shown deference to other ideologies and faiths. In the Sütrakṛtänga the second earliest Jaina work (c. 2nd cent. B.C.), it is observed that those who praise their own faith and views and discard those of their opponents, possess malice against them and hence ramain confined to the cycle of birth and death. In another famous Jaina work of the same period, the Isibhāsiyäim, the teaching of the forty five renowned saints of Śramanical and Brahmanical schools of thought such as Nārada, Bhāradvāja, Mankhali-Gośāla and many others have been presented with due regards". They are remembered as arhatrși and their teachings are regarded as an agama. In the history of world religions there is hardly any example in which the teachings of the religious teachers of the opponent sects were included in one's own scriptures with due esteem and honour. Evidently, it indicates the latitudinarian and unpreju diced outlook of the earliest Jaina thinkers. We also have areference to religious tolerance in the Vyakhyäprajñapti, one of the early works of the Jainas, When an old friend of Gautama, who was initiated in some other religious sect, came to visit him, Mahävira commanded Gautama to welcome him and Gautama did so. Accroding to Uttaradhyayana, when Gautama, the chief disciple of Mahävira and Kesi, a prominent pontiff of Pārsvanatha's sect met at Kosambi, both paid due regard to each other and discussed the various problems dispassionately and in gentle and friendly manner about the differences of both the sects".
Haribhadra has not only maintained this latitudinarian outlook of earlier Jainäcäryas, but lent new dimension to it. He was born in.
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