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JAINISM of Gosāla's mechanistic biological order, slowly but automatically working through the eighty-four thousand incarnations, Jainism thus asserts the power and value of the morale of the individual: the force of thoughts, words, and deeds, which, it virtuous, stainless, and unselfish, lead the lile-monad to (illightenment, but if bad, egocentric, and unconsidered, fling it back into the darker, more primitive conditions, dooming it to an existence in the animal kingdom or to lives among the tortured inmates of the hells.
Nevertheless, Jainism, too, represents a scientific, practically atheistic, interpretation of existence. For the gods are nothing but life-monads, wearing temporarily favorable masks in supremely fortunate surroundings, whereas the material universe is uncreated and everlasting. The universe is composed of six constituents, as follows:
1. Jiva: the aggregate of the countless life-monads. Each is uncreated and imperishable, by nature omniscient, endowed with infinite energy, and full of bliss. Intrinsically the lifemonads are all absolutely alike, but they have been modified, diminished, and tainted in their perfection, through the perpetual influx of the second and opposite constituent of the universe, namely:
2. Ajīva: "all that is not (a.) the life-monad (jīva).” 98 Ajīva is, firstly, space (äkāša). This is regarded as an all-comprehending container, enclosing not only the universe (loka), but also the non-universe (aloka). The latter is what lies beyond the contours of the colossal Macrocosmic Man or Woman.°4 Ajīva comprises, moreover, countless space-units (pradeia), and is indestructible. Besides being space, however, ajīva is also manifest as all four of the following constituents of the world, which are
88 This elementary dichotomy of jiva-ajīva is carried on in the Sankhya philosophy under the categories purusa-prakrti. Prakrli is the matter of the universe, the psychic-and-physical material that enwraps puruşa. #4 Cf. supra, p. 259.
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| 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 |