Page Text
________________
JAINISM tered; that is what constitutes their secret veiled dignity. Potentially they partake of the plenitude of life, which is divine; cssentially they are constituents of the abundance and fullness of blissful energy. And yet they dwell in sorrow. The aim of men must be to make manisest the power that is latent within them by removing whatever hindrances may be standing in the way.
Although this conception was certainly not native to the Āryan religion of the l'edic gods, and was in fact diametrically opposed to its conception of the nature and destiny of man, it became fused with it during the first millennum B.C., and since that time has stood as one of the basic doctrines of classical Indian philosophy. It pervades the whole texture of Brāhmanic thought throughout the period of the Upanişads. where the realization of the divine Self within is proclaimed as the sole pursuit worthy of one endowed with human birth. And yet it is important to note that between the Jaina view and that of the Brāhmanic development of the first millennium (as represented, typically, in the Upanişads) there is no less difference than resemblance: also the Buddhist doctrine is very different; for whereas the Jaina philosophy is characterized by a strictly mechanical materialism with respect to the subtle substantiality of the life-monad and the karmic influx, as well as with respect to the state of the released, both in the Upanişads and in the Buddhistic writings an immaterial, psychological outlook on the same questions is presented. And this fundamental difference touches every detail, not only of the cosmologies and metaphysics in question, but also of the related moral codes.
For example, if a Jaina monk swallows a morsel of meat inadvertently while eating the food that has collected in his almsbowl during his daily begging-tour (at the doors of whatever town or village he may happen to be traversing in the course of his aimless, homeless pilgrimage), the crystal of his life-monad becomes automatically stained by a dark influx, in mechanical
254
| SR No. | 007309 |
| Book Title | Philosophies of India |
| 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 |