Philosophies of India

SR No.: 007309
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Heinrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell
Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd
Publication Year: 1953
Total Pages: 709
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 34 MB

Page 263

JAINISM
held from liberation. This is a view that Jainism shares with the Sankhya philosophy, which is likewise non-Aryan, non-Vedic, and rooted in the world view of aboriginal India; 5 for in the Sankhya, the life-monads (there called purusas) are strictly distinguished from lifeless matter (there called prakṛti), and the goal of man's spiritual effort is conceived of as the realization of the separation of the two.
This radical dualism of the early Jaina and Sankhya views is in striking contrast to the well-known "nondualism" of classic Brahmanism, as developed in the Upanisads and Bhagavad Gitā and supremely stated in the Vedanta: for according to the Vedantic teaching, matter (prakṛ ti) is materialized energy (prāṇa, śakti), which, in turn, is the temporal manifestation of that incorporcal, supra-spiritual, eternal essence which is the innermost Self (atman) of all things. The Self (atman) both evolves the phenomenal realm of matter (prakṛti) and simultaneously enters into it under the form of the life-monads, or individual selves (jīvas, purusas). In other words, all things, in all their aspects, are but reflexes of that one eternal Self-Atman-Brahman-which is in essence beyond all definition, name and form.
"The non-existent, verily, was here in the beginning," we read, for example, in one of the basic Brahmanic texts. That "nonexistent" is not to be regarded simply as a nothing; for then one would not have declared that it "was." Hence the text goes on
58 Cf. supra, p. 60, Editor's note.
59 Editor's note: This subject will be discussed at length, infra, pp. 355463. Dr. Zimmer's present point will be simply that though the JainaSankhya view is dualistic and the Vedic-Vedantic nondualistic with respect to the relationship of the life-monad (jiva, purusa) to matter (karma, prakṛti), both traditions represent the Cosmic Man as identical with the universe-not as an external God-Creator of something absolutely separate from himself.
60 Cf. supra, pp. 74-83.
61 Satapatha Brahmana 6. 1. 1. 109.
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