According to a Jain tradition Lord Mahavira, the last of the Tirthankaras, was born at Kundagrama and at Vaniyagrama was his residence, both the places being part of or near Vaishali. While the modern village of Bania can be taken as representing the site of ancient Vaniagrama, the location of Kundagrama is identified with the modern village of Vasokund, about 2 kms northeast of the gadh mound.
Bisram
It is said that Lord Mahavira, the 24th Jain Tirthankara, took rest for some time at this place during his wanderings, hence this place is called Bisram (rest). The Jains from every part of the country visit this place throughout the year. The Jain temple here contains an idol of Lord Mahavira. This place is in the Ara town where there are another 45 Jain temples.
JAINISM AND BIHAR
Jains are followers of the Tirthankar Vardhaman Mahavir, the last Tirthankar, who was born about the middle of the sixth century B.C. to a wealthy nobleman, Siddharth, of the Jnatrika clan in a suburb of the city of Vaishali. Siddharth was a follower of Parshwa, the twenty-third Tirthankar. Mahavir's Mother, Trishala, was the sister of the Governor of Vaishali and related to the ruling Lichchhavi house of Videh. In Mahavir's thirtieth years, his parents ended their lives, it is believed, by voluntary starvation. His elder brother, Nandivardhan, succeeded to the principality, while Vardhaman Mahavir renounced the world and became an ascetic. He was borne from home in a palanquin to the shade of an Ashok tree where he divested himself of his ornaments and fine raiment. From then on, for thirteen years, till the age of forty-three, he lived a life of extreme self-mortification. At the end of this period while he was in deep meditation under a shala tree on the banks of the river Rijupalika, he achieved the state called nirvana or kaivalya. He was acclaimed as a Kevalin (supreme omniscient), Jina (conqueror), Arhat (Blessed One), and Tirthankar (ford-finder). In a long wandering life of 42 years in north and south Bihar, he gathered a considerable following of monks, known as the Nirgranthas, or men who discarded all social bonds, who after Mahavir's death (c.490 B.C.) became known as Jains.
The Jains describe all human truth as relative and temporal, not absolute. Nothing is true for them, except from one point of view. From other points of view it would probably be false. All judgments, therefore, are limited and conditional; absolute truth comes only to the periodic redeemers or Jinas. It is not necessary to believe in a Creator or First Cause- for, said the Jains, any child can refute that belief by showing that an in created God is just as impossible as an uncreated or uncaused world. It is more logical to believe that the world has existed from all eternity and that its infinite changes and revolutions are caused by its own inherent powers rather than by the intervention of God. The universe- plants, animals and humans- is a plurality of jivas, all subject to the cosmic process or karma and rebirth. One can, however, free oneself through austerity and penance.
Mahavir is said to have breathed his last at a place called Apapa (Pawa) in Bihar. Besides, a large number of Jain monks too died on the famous Parasnath Hill, a mountain that takes its name from the twenty-third Jain Tirthankar, Parshwanath who is said to have attained nirvana by voluntary starvation on this hill, now in the Jharkhand state. In the Kalpa Sutra, this hill is called Sammet Shikhara, while in other Jain works it is referred to as the Samidagiri and the Mallaparvata, the former name being a corruption of Samadhigiri, a word signifying the mountain on which no less than nineteen of the Jain Tirthankars are said to have attained Moksha.
In the reign of Chandragupt Maurya, the chief pontiff of the Jains was Bhadrabahu (f.1.290B.C.), author of a biography of Mahavir. During a twelve-year famine, he led a migration of the Jains southward, as far as Mysore. After the famine the surviving emigrants returned to the north, but discovered that those who had stayed behind in Magadh had ceased to observe the rule of nudity and other essential Jain disciplines. A council was held at Pataliputra (c. 280 B.C.) with the object of reconciling the factions and collating the Jain scriptures. About the first century A.D., however, the split between the two principal sects became final on the subject of nudity. The 'white-clad' Shwetambar sect, who derived its authority from Parshwanath, consisted of the descendants of those who remained at Magadh during the great migration southward. They are found mostly in northern India. The other sect consisted have the Digambar or 'sky-clad' monks who went about nude and had migrated to the south during the famine. They held women in low esteem. Jainism gradually shifted from eastern India, spreading first to Mathura and Ujjain and then southwards. It was the main religion of the Kannarese-speaking communities for more than a thousand years and exercised an immense influence among the Rashtrakutas, Hoysalas, Kadambas and other people. Most of the Jains today are traders and bankers, especially well known among them being the Marwaris whose traditional home is Marwar in Rajputana.
Pali ,Prakrits
Pali is one of the Prakrits of ancient India which was spoken in the sixth century before Christ, and has been a dead language for upwards of two thousand years. It was the dialect of Magadha, or Central Bihar, and was the language in which Gautama Buddha preached. Originally a mere provincial dialect, it was raised by the genius of the great reformer to the dignity of a classic language. It stands to Sanskrit in the relation to a sister. Pali and Sanskrit, though intimately connected, being independent corruptions of the lost Aryan speech which is their common parent.
The Pali Language has undoubtedly a high claim to the attention of the literary world. It has long been a contested point whether the Pali or Sanskrit is the more ancient language of India. It is certain, that Pali was (the popular dialect of the native country of Magadh. Its literature contains a considerable number of volumes both in prose and verse; which, whatever may be their merits in. In some respects, form the only authentic depositary of Buddhism, and the learning in general of Ceylon, and the whole of India beyond the Ganges, to which the Pali now is, and has been for many centuries, what Sanskrit is in India Proper, and Latin in Europe.
But although so ancient, so widely spread and containing so many valuable records of antiquity, yet nothing has hitherto been published in respect to the Pali language hence in many excellent papers in the Asiatic Researches it still appears as an unknown world.
Jainism, the path of the victors
The oldest continuous monastic tradition in India is Jainism, the path of the Jinas, or victors. This tradition is traced to Var-dhamana Mahavira (The Great Hero; ca. 599-527 B.C.), the twenty-fourth and last of the Tirthankaras (Sanskrit for fordmakers). According to legend, Mahavira was born to a ruling family in the town of Vaishali, located in the modern state of Bihar. At the age of thirty, he renounced his wealthy life and devoted himself to fasting and self-mortification in order to purify his consciousness and discover the meaning of existence. He never again dwelt in a house, owned property, or wore clothing of any sort. Following the example of the teacher Parshvanatha (ninth century B.C.), he attained enlightenment and spent the rest of his life meditating and teaching a dedicated group of disciples who formed a monastic order following rules he laid down. His life's work complete, he entered a final fast and deliberately died of starvation.
The ancient belief system of the Jains rests on a concrete understanding of the working of karma, its effects on the living soul (jiva), and the conditions for extinguishing action and the soul's release. According to the Jain view, the soul is a living substance that combines with various kinds of nonliving matter and through action accumulates particles of matter that adhere to it and determine its fate. Most of the matter perceptible to human senses, including all animals and plants, is attached in various degrees to living souls and is in this sense alive. Any action has consequences that necessarily follow the embodied soul, but the worst accumulations of matter come from violence against other living beings. The ultimate Jain discipline, therefore, rests on complete inactivity and absolute nonviolence (ahimsa) against any living beings. Some Jain monks and nuns wear face masks to avoid accidentally inhaling small organisms, and all practicing believers try to remain vegetarians. Extreme renunciation, including the refusal of all food, lies at the heart of a discipline that purges the mind and body of all desires and actions and, in the process, burns off the consequences of actions performed in the past. In this sense, Jain renunciants may recognize or revere deities, but they do not view the Vedas as sacred texts and instead concentrate on the atheistic, individual quest for purification and removal of karma. The final goal is the extinguishing of self, a "blowing out" (nirvana) of the individual self.
The ancient belief system of the Jains rests on a concrete understanding of the working of karma, its effects on the living soul (jiva), and the conditions for extinguishing action and the soul's release. According to the Jain view, the soul is a living substance that combines with various kinds of nonliving matter and through action accumulates particles of matter that adhere to it and determine its fate. Most of the matter perceptible to human senses, including all animals and plants, is attached in various degrees to living souls and is in this sense alive. Any action has consequences that necessarily follow the embodied soul, but the worst accumulations of matter come from violence against other living beings. The ultimate Jain discipline, therefore, rests on complete inactivity and absolute nonviolence (ahimsa) against any living beings. Some Jain monks and nuns wear face masks to avoid accidentally inhaling small organisms, and all practicing believers try to remain vegetarians. Extreme renunciation, including the refusal of all food, lies at the heart of a discipline that purges the mind and body of all desires and actions and, in the process, burns off the consequences of actions performed in the past. In this sense, Jain renunciants may recognize or revere deities, but they do not view the Vedas as sacred texts and instead concentrate on the atheistic, individual quest for purification and removal of karma. The final goal is the extinguishing of self, a "blowing out" (nirvana) of the individual self.
By the first century A.D., the Jain community evolved into two main divisions based on monastic discipline: the Digambara or "sky-clad" monks who wear no clothes, own nothing, and collect donated food in their hands; and the Svetambara or "white-clad" monks and nuns who wear white robes and carry bowls for donated food. The Digambara do not accept the possibility of women achieving liberation, while the Svetambara do. Western and southern India have been Jain strongholds for many centuries; laypersons have typically formed minority communities concentrated primarily in urban areas and in mercantile occupations. In the mid-1990s, there were about 7 million Jains, the majority of whom live in the states of Maharashtra (mostly the city of Bombay, or Mumbai in Marathi), Rajasthan, and Gujarat (see Structure and Dynamics, ch. 2). Karnataka, traditionally a stronghold of Digambaras, has a sizable Jain community.
The Jain laity Special shrines in residences or in public temples include images of the Tirthankaras, who are not worshiped but remembered and revered; other shrines house the gods who are more properly invoked to intercede with worldly problems. Daily rituals may include meditation and bathing; bathing the images; offering food, flowers, and lighted lamps for the images; and reciting mantras in Ardhamagadhi, an ancient language of northeast India related to Sanskrit. Many Jain laity engage in sacramental ceremonies during life-cycle rituals, such as the first taking of solid food, marriage, and death, resembling those enacted by Hindus. Jains may also worship local gods and participate in local Hindu or Muslim celebrations without compromising their fundamental devotion to the path of the Jinas. The most important festivals of Jainism celebrate the five major events in the life of Mahavira: conception, birth, renunciation, enlightenment, and final release at death.
At a number of pilgrimage sites associated with great teachers of Jainism, the gifts of wealthy donors made possible the building of architectural wonders. Shatrunjaya Hills (Siddhagiri) in Gujarat is a major Svetambara site, an entire city of about 3,500 temples. Mount Abu in Rajasthan, with one Digambara and five Svetambara temples, is the site of some of India's greatest architecture, dating from the eleventh through thirteenth centuries A.D. In Karnataka, on the hill of Sravana Belgola, stands the monolithic seventeen-meter-high statue of the naked Bhagwan Bahubali (Gomateshvara), the first person in the world believed by the faithful to have attained enlightenment, so deep in meditation that vines are growing around his legs. At this site every twelve years, a major concourse of Jain ascetics and laity participate in a purification ceremony in which the statue is anointed from head to toe. Carved in 981, the statue is considered the holiest Jain shrine. In addition to its lavish patronage of shrines, the Jain community, with its long scriptural tradition and wealth gained from trade, has always been known for its philanthropy and especially for its support of education and learning. Prestigious Jain schools are located in most major cities. The largest concentrations of Jains are in Maharashtra (more than 965,000) and Rajasthan (nearly 563,000), with sizable numbers also in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.
The Jain laity Special shrines in residences or in public temples include images of the Tirthankaras, who are not worshiped but remembered and revered; other shrines house the gods who are more properly invoked to intercede with worldly problems. Daily rituals may include meditation and bathing; bathing the images; offering food, flowers, and lighted lamps for the images; and reciting mantras in Ardhamagadhi, an ancient language of northeast India related to Sanskrit. Many Jain laity engage in sacramental ceremonies during life-cycle rituals, such as the first taking of solid food, marriage, and death, resembling those enacted by Hindus. Jains may also worship local gods and participate in local Hindu or Muslim celebrations without compromising their fundamental devotion to the path of the Jinas. The most important festivals of Jainism celebrate the five major events in the life of Mahavira: conception, birth, renunciation, enlightenment, and final release at death.
At a number of pilgrimage sites associated with great teachers of Jainism, the gifts of wealthy donors made possible the building of architectural wonders. Shatrunjaya Hills (Siddhagiri) in Gujarat is a major Svetambara site, an entire city of about 3,500 temples. Mount Abu in Rajasthan, with one Digambara and five Svetambara temples, is the site of some of India's greatest architecture, dating from the eleventh through thirteenth centuries A.D. In Karnataka, on the hill of Sravana Belgola, stands the monolithic seventeen-meter-high statue of the naked Bhagwan Bahubali (Gomateshvara), the first person in the world believed by the faithful to have attained enlightenment, so deep in meditation that vines are growing around his legs. At this site every twelve years, a major concourse of Jain ascetics and laity participate in a purification ceremony in which the statue is anointed from head to toe. Carved in 981, the statue is considered the holiest Jain shrine. In addition to its lavish patronage of shrines, the Jain community, with its long scriptural tradition and wealth gained from trade, has always been known for its philanthropy and especially for its support of education and learning. Prestigious Jain schools are located in most major cities. The largest concentrations of Jains are in Maharashtra (more than 965,000) and Rajasthan (nearly 563,000), with sizable numbers also in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.
Jain Temple
Situated in Deoghar, it is a magnificent temple. A rare litrary is also maintained here. A noted social worker and devotee, Tarachand Jain laboured hard to make the temple in the present position. Jainis from India and abroad visit the temple every year.
It belongs to the Digamber Sect.
It belongs to the Digamber Sect.
JAINISM
"Jain" or more properly speaking "Jaina" means a follower of Jina, which is applied to those persons who have conquered the lower nature, passion, hatred, etc. The word ‘Jain’ comes from the word ‘Jina’ which means a conqueror. ‘Jina’ comes from the root ‘Ji’—’to conquer’. It means conquering the passions. It does not mean conquering nations. The passions are considered as enemies of the soul. They taint the natural qualities of the soul, obscure right belief, cause false knowledge and wrong conduct. Lust, anger, pride and greed are considered as the major passions.
The chief point in the Jaina creed is the reverence paid to holy men, who have raised themselves to divine perfection through long discipline. The Jina or the ‘conquering saint’, who has conquered all worldly desires is with Jains what the Buddha or the perfectly enlightened saint is with Buddhas. He is also called Jineswara (chief of the Jinas), Arhat, "the venerable", Tirthankara or the saint who has made the passage of the world, Sarvajna (omniscient), Bhagavat (holy one). ‘Tirtha’ literally means a ford, a means of crossing over. It metaphorically denotes a spiritual guide or philosophy which enables one to cross over the ocean of recurring births in this world. ‘Kara’ means ‘one who makes’. The word Tirthankara means a ‘Jain Holy Teacher’.
According to the belief of the Jains, only the omniscient are able to give a right code of rules of life. These teachers or Tirthankaras are not creators or rulers of the world. They are pure divine souls, who have attained perfection. They never again take human birth.
Mahavira is not the founder of Jainism. He revived the Jain doctrines. He was more a reformer than the founder of the faith. He was the first active propagator. He was the twenty-fourth Tirthankara. He is claimed to have been omniscient. ‘Maha’ means ‘great’ and ‘Vira’ means ‘a hero’. Parasvanath was the twenty-third. The first of these twenty-four was named Rishabha Dev.
The idols which represent the Tirthankaras are like that of Buddha in a meditative posture, Jainism is a representative of Buddhistic ideas. It has much in common with Buddhism. It is a near relative of Buddhism, if not its actual descendant.
The Jain theory is based on reason. It is based on right faith, right knowledge, right conduct, tempered with mercy. Jainism is not a theistic system in the sense of the belief in the existence of a God as the Creator and the Ruler of the world. The highest being in the Jain philosophy is a person and not a Being without attributes like the Brahman of the Vedanta.
JAIN PHILOSOPHY
The Jain philosophy bases its doctrine on the absolute necessity of conquering the lower nature for the realisation of Truth.
The Jains do not accept the authority of the Vedas.
Jainism divides the whole universe into two main divisions viz., sentient beings (Chetana, also called Jiva or Soul) and non-sentient things (Jada, also called Ajiva or non-soul). Soul is that element which thinks, knows and feels. It is the divine element in the living being. The true nature of the soul is right knowledge, right faith and right conduct. The soul is undergoing evolution and involution, so long as it is subject to transmigration. Whatever is not soul is non-soul (Ajiva).
The combination of the Jiva and the Ajiva causes all diversities in this universe. Their interaction or interplay is the cause of the world-process or evolution. When the soul is stripped of all its Ajiva bondage, it becomes pure and attains its ultimate Mukti.
GOD
Jainism does not regard God as a Creator. God in the sense of an extra cosmic personal Creator has no place in the Jain philosophy. But there is a subtle essence underlying all substances, conscious and unconscious, which becomes the cause of all modifications. This is termed God. The Jain idea of Godhood is the perfected Soul (Siddha), the liberated soul (Mukta). The Jains worship these liberated souls (Tirthankaras) who have destroyed all Karmas and attained salvation, as their God. They accept those enlightened souls only, who have abandoned all worldly connections, who lead the life of true Sadhus, who have controlled all selfish desires, as their spiritual teachers. They accept that only as the true religion, which is promulgated by them.
The Jain Tirthankara is free from faults. He is true God. He is the knower of all things and the revealer of Dharma. He is free from the 18 kinds of blemishes viz., hunger, thirst, senility, disease, birth, death, fear, pride, attachment, aversion, infatuation, worry, conceit, hatred, uneasiness, sweat, sleep and surprise.
The Jain philosophy teaches that each soul is a separate individuality, uncreated and eternal in existence. It has lived from time immemorial in some embodied state. It evolves from the lower to the higher condition through the Law of Karma, or cause and effect. It takes fresh bodies after death so long as the Karmas or forces generated in previous lives have not been fully worked out. Eventually it unfolds its absolute purity by breaking the bonds of Karma and attains perfection, Nirvana or Mukti. The individuality is not merged into anything. It is not annihilated also. It attains right realisation, right knowledge and right life. The perfected soul is neither masculine, feminine, nor neuter.
Every soul is potentially omniscient. Consciousness is the very nature of the soul. Soul is a pure embodiment of knowledge. The soul has infinite potentialities. It has infinite capacity for removing Karma-bondages.
WORLD
The world is beginningless and endless. There is no extra cosmic creator or ruler of the world. There are six real substances which constitute the world. These six are space, time, matter, souls, Dharmastikaya (fulcrum of motion) and Adharmastikaya (fulcrum of stability, or rest). Space serves as a receptacle for the other substances. It is infinite. Time is real. It is beginningless and endless. Material objects consist of atoms.
DOCTRINE OF KARMA AND REINCARNATION
The only enemy of the soul is the force Of its own Karmas (actions). It can destroy the Karma by becoming fully self-conscious. When the bonds of Karma are destroyed, the soul attains Mukti. It cannot be overcome afresh by Karma.
The doctrine of Karma occupies a very prominent place in the Jain philosophy. Punya is the effect of virtuous deeds (Subha Karma). Papa is the effect of evil deeds (Asubha Karma). If a man has abundance of good actions, his happiness increases; if he has abundance of evil deeds, his miseries and pain increase. When both the good and evil deeds are eliminated, he attains emancipation or Moksha.
The doctrine of Karma is the companion doctrine of the transmigration of the soul. "With what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again." "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall be also reaped." These are but the corollaries of that most intricate Law of Karma. This solves the problem of the inequality and seeming injustice in the world. A student of the Jain Karma philosophy can trace any effect to a particular Karma. Those who by right faith, right knowledge and right conduct destroy all Karmas, attain perfection. They become divine and are called Jinas. Those Jinas who, in every age, preach the law and establish the order, are called Tirthankaras.
The Jains believe in reincarnation. The doctrine of reincarnation alone can explain the inequality seen in the world. Why is one man born rich and the other poor? Why is one man healthy and strong, and another man weak and unhealthy? Why one man lives for 30 years, and another for 85 years? Why one man is a king and another a labourer in the field? What is the cause of this apparent injustice? Karma. Good Karmas give good birth. Evil Karmas give rise to low births. The doctrine of reincarnation is another grand doctrine of the Jain philosophy. It is the companion doctrine of Doctrine of Karma.
TRIPLE JEWELS
Right faith, right knowledge and right conduct constitute the path to Nirvana. Wrong beliefs, wrong knowledge and wrong conduct prolong the bondage of the souls. The belief that the Jaina Tirthankaras are the true Gods, the Jaina Sastras the true scriptures and the Jaina saints the true Preceptors is called the Right faith.
Right knowledge: Right knowledge reveals the nature of things as it is and with certainty.
Right conduct (Jain ethics): That noble soul who has right knowledge on account of right faith begins to practise the rules of right conduct, to attain the state of desirelessness by eradicating likes and dislikes, which destroy the five kinds of sin viz. Himsa (injury), falsehood, theft, unchastity and attachment to mundane objects.
The universal principles of Jainism are Ahimsa (non-injury), Satyam (truthfulness), Asteya (non-stealing), Brahmacharya (celibacy) and Aparigraha (non-covetousness). This corresponds to the Yama of Raja Yoga of Patanjali Maharshi. Jainism preaches universal brotherhood, equality of all beings. It enjoins on all its followers the practice of the greatest self-control.
The five Mahavratas or great Commandments for Jain ascetics are:—not to kill, i.e., to protect all life; not to lie; not to take that which is not given; to abstain from sexual intercourse; to renounce all interest in worldly things, particularly to call nothing one’s own.
The Jain doctrines are summed up in the maxim ‘Ahimsa Paramo Dharmah’. Non-injury to living beings is the highest religion. Ahimsa is the foundational tenet of Jainism. Jainism always tends to protect and advance the interests of all kinds of living beings.
One should not kill, tell lies, steal, be unchaste or over-greedy for possession of property. This constitutes Jain ethics. The Jains are vegetarians.
According to the Jain philosophy, all evils are due to Raga and Dvesha (attachment and hatred). Raja Yoga philosophy of Patanjali Maharshi, the Nyaya philosophy of Gautama and Vedanta also say the same thing. Attachment produces Moha or infatuation. Moha causes entanglement. Separation from the object causes pain and suffering. Through Dvesha man injures others. Attachment also is as much an evil as hatred. Both are causes of bondage. Both taint the mind.
MOKSHA
Moksha is the total elimination of Karma from the Jiva. The Jiva gets freedom as soon as it attains this stage. The liberated state is known as Mukti. The Jiva attains perfect, unlimited, eternal happiness, untouched by cares and worries. Moksha implies freedom from matter. The liberated soul goes to the abode Siddhakshetra, which is at the top of this world.
The individual by his own efforts liberates all his latent qualities, which were obscured by foreign elements (Karmas). This state of purity or perfection is attained only in the human life through the triple jewels, viz. right faith, right knowledge and right conduct.
The soul becomes pure by the removal of matter. In this condition there are no pain, misery, disease, old age or death, fatigue, discomfort. It is a condition of immortality, infinite knowledge, eternal uninterrupted bliss.
The chief point in the Jaina creed is the reverence paid to holy men, who have raised themselves to divine perfection through long discipline. The Jina or the ‘conquering saint’, who has conquered all worldly desires is with Jains what the Buddha or the perfectly enlightened saint is with Buddhas. He is also called Jineswara (chief of the Jinas), Arhat, "the venerable", Tirthankara or the saint who has made the passage of the world, Sarvajna (omniscient), Bhagavat (holy one). ‘Tirtha’ literally means a ford, a means of crossing over. It metaphorically denotes a spiritual guide or philosophy which enables one to cross over the ocean of recurring births in this world. ‘Kara’ means ‘one who makes’. The word Tirthankara means a ‘Jain Holy Teacher’.
According to the belief of the Jains, only the omniscient are able to give a right code of rules of life. These teachers or Tirthankaras are not creators or rulers of the world. They are pure divine souls, who have attained perfection. They never again take human birth.
Mahavira is not the founder of Jainism. He revived the Jain doctrines. He was more a reformer than the founder of the faith. He was the first active propagator. He was the twenty-fourth Tirthankara. He is claimed to have been omniscient. ‘Maha’ means ‘great’ and ‘Vira’ means ‘a hero’. Parasvanath was the twenty-third. The first of these twenty-four was named Rishabha Dev.
The idols which represent the Tirthankaras are like that of Buddha in a meditative posture, Jainism is a representative of Buddhistic ideas. It has much in common with Buddhism. It is a near relative of Buddhism, if not its actual descendant.
The Jain theory is based on reason. It is based on right faith, right knowledge, right conduct, tempered with mercy. Jainism is not a theistic system in the sense of the belief in the existence of a God as the Creator and the Ruler of the world. The highest being in the Jain philosophy is a person and not a Being without attributes like the Brahman of the Vedanta.
JAIN PHILOSOPHY
The Jain philosophy bases its doctrine on the absolute necessity of conquering the lower nature for the realisation of Truth.
The Jains do not accept the authority of the Vedas.
Jainism divides the whole universe into two main divisions viz., sentient beings (Chetana, also called Jiva or Soul) and non-sentient things (Jada, also called Ajiva or non-soul). Soul is that element which thinks, knows and feels. It is the divine element in the living being. The true nature of the soul is right knowledge, right faith and right conduct. The soul is undergoing evolution and involution, so long as it is subject to transmigration. Whatever is not soul is non-soul (Ajiva).
The combination of the Jiva and the Ajiva causes all diversities in this universe. Their interaction or interplay is the cause of the world-process or evolution. When the soul is stripped of all its Ajiva bondage, it becomes pure and attains its ultimate Mukti.
GOD
Jainism does not regard God as a Creator. God in the sense of an extra cosmic personal Creator has no place in the Jain philosophy. But there is a subtle essence underlying all substances, conscious and unconscious, which becomes the cause of all modifications. This is termed God. The Jain idea of Godhood is the perfected Soul (Siddha), the liberated soul (Mukta). The Jains worship these liberated souls (Tirthankaras) who have destroyed all Karmas and attained salvation, as their God. They accept those enlightened souls only, who have abandoned all worldly connections, who lead the life of true Sadhus, who have controlled all selfish desires, as their spiritual teachers. They accept that only as the true religion, which is promulgated by them.
The Jain Tirthankara is free from faults. He is true God. He is the knower of all things and the revealer of Dharma. He is free from the 18 kinds of blemishes viz., hunger, thirst, senility, disease, birth, death, fear, pride, attachment, aversion, infatuation, worry, conceit, hatred, uneasiness, sweat, sleep and surprise.
The Jain philosophy teaches that each soul is a separate individuality, uncreated and eternal in existence. It has lived from time immemorial in some embodied state. It evolves from the lower to the higher condition through the Law of Karma, or cause and effect. It takes fresh bodies after death so long as the Karmas or forces generated in previous lives have not been fully worked out. Eventually it unfolds its absolute purity by breaking the bonds of Karma and attains perfection, Nirvana or Mukti. The individuality is not merged into anything. It is not annihilated also. It attains right realisation, right knowledge and right life. The perfected soul is neither masculine, feminine, nor neuter.
Every soul is potentially omniscient. Consciousness is the very nature of the soul. Soul is a pure embodiment of knowledge. The soul has infinite potentialities. It has infinite capacity for removing Karma-bondages.
WORLD
The world is beginningless and endless. There is no extra cosmic creator or ruler of the world. There are six real substances which constitute the world. These six are space, time, matter, souls, Dharmastikaya (fulcrum of motion) and Adharmastikaya (fulcrum of stability, or rest). Space serves as a receptacle for the other substances. It is infinite. Time is real. It is beginningless and endless. Material objects consist of atoms.
DOCTRINE OF KARMA AND REINCARNATION
The only enemy of the soul is the force Of its own Karmas (actions). It can destroy the Karma by becoming fully self-conscious. When the bonds of Karma are destroyed, the soul attains Mukti. It cannot be overcome afresh by Karma.
The doctrine of Karma occupies a very prominent place in the Jain philosophy. Punya is the effect of virtuous deeds (Subha Karma). Papa is the effect of evil deeds (Asubha Karma). If a man has abundance of good actions, his happiness increases; if he has abundance of evil deeds, his miseries and pain increase. When both the good and evil deeds are eliminated, he attains emancipation or Moksha.
The doctrine of Karma is the companion doctrine of the transmigration of the soul. "With what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again." "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall be also reaped." These are but the corollaries of that most intricate Law of Karma. This solves the problem of the inequality and seeming injustice in the world. A student of the Jain Karma philosophy can trace any effect to a particular Karma. Those who by right faith, right knowledge and right conduct destroy all Karmas, attain perfection. They become divine and are called Jinas. Those Jinas who, in every age, preach the law and establish the order, are called Tirthankaras.
The Jains believe in reincarnation. The doctrine of reincarnation alone can explain the inequality seen in the world. Why is one man born rich and the other poor? Why is one man healthy and strong, and another man weak and unhealthy? Why one man lives for 30 years, and another for 85 years? Why one man is a king and another a labourer in the field? What is the cause of this apparent injustice? Karma. Good Karmas give good birth. Evil Karmas give rise to low births. The doctrine of reincarnation is another grand doctrine of the Jain philosophy. It is the companion doctrine of Doctrine of Karma.
TRIPLE JEWELS
Right faith, right knowledge and right conduct constitute the path to Nirvana. Wrong beliefs, wrong knowledge and wrong conduct prolong the bondage of the souls. The belief that the Jaina Tirthankaras are the true Gods, the Jaina Sastras the true scriptures and the Jaina saints the true Preceptors is called the Right faith.
Right knowledge: Right knowledge reveals the nature of things as it is and with certainty.
Right conduct (Jain ethics): That noble soul who has right knowledge on account of right faith begins to practise the rules of right conduct, to attain the state of desirelessness by eradicating likes and dislikes, which destroy the five kinds of sin viz. Himsa (injury), falsehood, theft, unchastity and attachment to mundane objects.
The universal principles of Jainism are Ahimsa (non-injury), Satyam (truthfulness), Asteya (non-stealing), Brahmacharya (celibacy) and Aparigraha (non-covetousness). This corresponds to the Yama of Raja Yoga of Patanjali Maharshi. Jainism preaches universal brotherhood, equality of all beings. It enjoins on all its followers the practice of the greatest self-control.
The five Mahavratas or great Commandments for Jain ascetics are:—not to kill, i.e., to protect all life; not to lie; not to take that which is not given; to abstain from sexual intercourse; to renounce all interest in worldly things, particularly to call nothing one’s own.
The Jain doctrines are summed up in the maxim ‘Ahimsa Paramo Dharmah’. Non-injury to living beings is the highest religion. Ahimsa is the foundational tenet of Jainism. Jainism always tends to protect and advance the interests of all kinds of living beings.
One should not kill, tell lies, steal, be unchaste or over-greedy for possession of property. This constitutes Jain ethics. The Jains are vegetarians.
According to the Jain philosophy, all evils are due to Raga and Dvesha (attachment and hatred). Raja Yoga philosophy of Patanjali Maharshi, the Nyaya philosophy of Gautama and Vedanta also say the same thing. Attachment produces Moha or infatuation. Moha causes entanglement. Separation from the object causes pain and suffering. Through Dvesha man injures others. Attachment also is as much an evil as hatred. Both are causes of bondage. Both taint the mind.
MOKSHA
Moksha is the total elimination of Karma from the Jiva. The Jiva gets freedom as soon as it attains this stage. The liberated state is known as Mukti. The Jiva attains perfect, unlimited, eternal happiness, untouched by cares and worries. Moksha implies freedom from matter. The liberated soul goes to the abode Siddhakshetra, which is at the top of this world.
The individual by his own efforts liberates all his latent qualities, which were obscured by foreign elements (Karmas). This state of purity or perfection is attained only in the human life through the triple jewels, viz. right faith, right knowledge and right conduct.
The soul becomes pure by the removal of matter. In this condition there are no pain, misery, disease, old age or death, fatigue, discomfort. It is a condition of immortality, infinite knowledge, eternal uninterrupted bliss.
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