tman_and_moksa

Author(s): G N Joshi
Publisher: Gujarat University

Page 13

Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
philosophical thinking done in India which can accept the challenge of the rationalists, intellectualists, adalysts, positivists, and scientists to reassert the spiritual nature of man. The ancient Indian thinkers have also given serious thought to the ideals and the perfection of human life. In fact, the whole of Indian Philosophical thought is inspired and guided by the search for the aitainment of liberation (Mokşa). Perhaps nowhere else in the world do we get so much creative and critical thinking about the concepts of the Self and Liberation.
These Concepts of Atman and Mokșa, as expressed in the ancient Indian Philosophical Systems and in the writings of the Saints, may help us to overcome the present mental and spiritual unrest and crisis and to cure the present sickness of human civilization and may show the way of attaining everlasting satisfaction. They may also open up the eternal fountains of the divine and supersensuous joy, and may enable us to remedy the moral and spiritual maladies of the present age. It is with this thought in my mind, I have turned to this subject, and in this work I propose to put before the reader the various ideas of Atman and Mokşa and their evolution as delineated in the different systems or Indian Philosophy. This work is a faithful collection of all these ideas gathered, mostly and as far as possible, from the original sources of each system. I have tried, to the best of my ability, impartially to collect the data from each system, and to put them together and to give a synthetic account of them.
The reader may pote that in this work the term 'soul' is used to mean the individual and empirical self (Jiva or Jivātmap ), and the term 'Self' is used to mean the higher, universal, transcendental overself (Paramātman), which is also sometimes ideotified with the Ultimate Reality, Brahman.
The reader may also kipdly note that I have not been able, for convenience of printing, to follow strictly the usual rules of Sandhi in giving original Sapskrit quotations.
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