YJA Convention 1994 07 Chicago IL First

Author(s): Young Jains of America (YJA)
Publisher: Young Jains of America YJA USA

Page 11

The Original Traits of Jainism
In an essay entitled 'The Metaphysics and Ethics of the Jains', printed in The Transactions of The Third International Congress for The History of Religions, Vol. II, Jacobi said:
"All who approach Jain philosophy will be under the impression that it is a mass of philosophical tenets not upheld by one central idea, and they will wonder what could have given currency to what appears to us an un systematic system. I myself have held and given this impression to this opinion but I have now learned to look at Jain philosophy in a different light. It has, I think, a metaphysical basis of its own which secured it a distinct position apart from the rival systems."
"Jainism", says Jacobi, "is a monastic religion. Some European scholars who became acquainted with Jainism through inadequate samples of Jain literature easily persuaded themselves that it was an offshoot of Buddhism. But it has since been proved beyond doubt that their theory is wrong."
That the above theory is wrong is further demonstrated by Jacobi in his comparison of the last Jain prophet Mahavira with the first and only prophet of Buddhism, Gautama Buddha. In his words:
"Mahavira, however, unlike Buddha, was most probably not the founder of the Sect... Mahavira is not described by tradition as having first become a disciple of teachers whose doctrines afterwards failed to satisfy him, as we are told of Buddha; he seems to have had no misgivings, and to have known where truth was to be had and thus he became a Jain monk. And again, when, after many years of austerities such as are practiced by other ascetics of the Jains, he reached omniscience, we are not given to understand that he found any new truth or a new revelation, as Buddha is said to have received; not is any
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by Hermann Jacobi
particular doctrine or philosophical principal mentioned, the knowledge and insight of which then occurred to him for the first time. Mahavira appears in the traditions of his own sect as one who, from the beginning, had followed a religion established long ago; had he been more, had he been the founder of Jainism, tradition, ever eager to extol a prophet, would not have totally repressed his claims to reverence as such. Nor do Buddhistic traditions indicate that the Niganthas owed their origin to Nataputta; they simply speak of them as a sect existing at the time of the Buddha. We cannot, therefore, without doing violation to tradition, declare Mahavira to have been the founder of Jainism. But he is without doubt the last prophet of the Jains."
The words 'dharma' and 'adharma' are old indeed but they are considered synonymous with 'papa' and 'punya', or virtue and vice. The Jains alone have made a very original use of the words 'dharma' and 'adharma' which is unique to them. In Jain sacred literature, the former stands for Motion and the latter for Rest. In recognizing this, Jacobi writes:
"as their names 'dharma' and 'adharma' indicate, they seem to have denoted, in primitive speculation, those invisible 'fluids' which by contact cause sin and merit. The Jains, using for the latter notions the terms papa and punya, were free to use the current names of these 'fluids' in a new sense not known to other Indian thinkers."
Another very original contribution of Jains is their view about Matter for which they have used the word pudgala. Integral to this is their animistic ideas which must have been prevalent in the Indian society long before the growth of the more advanced ideas of the Brahmans in this respect. Another Jain originality lay in their notion of an aggregation of embodied souls which have been called nigoda which is