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Indian Ethnicity and Religious Heritage
originally atheistic and became theistic only after their fusion. Sankhya also denied the existence of God and hence it is referred to as "Niriswara" i.e. Godless. Thus the rejection of the ieda of a supreme authority outside one's own-self as shaping the destiny of the whole universe is rejected by some of the most important schools of philosophers in the process of evolution of Indian mataphysics.
Then the question which naturally arises is how do the Jains explain the origin and governance of Universe? What is their "Rainson detre" of this existence? Jain system maintains that the universe is without beginning or an end. It broadly classifies the univerese into two catagories viz. (1) Jiva (soul) (2) Ajiva (non-soul). Jiva is the creative spirit, the motivating force, the consciousness which pervades even in the things which are apparently immobile and inamimate. Ajiva is the matter - non-sentient, non motivating and non-conscious. This element of Ajiva is the world which is in existence outside the "I" element. Every living being has the consciousness of "I". This "I" exists inspite of the
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