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 297

JAINISM
cycles are the tides of this being's life-process, continuous and everlasting. We are all the particles of that gigantic body, and for each the task is to keep from being carried down to the infernal regions of the lower body, but, on the contrary, to ascend as specdily as possible to the supreme bliss of the peacesul dome of the prodigious skull.
This is an idea obviously contrary to the costnic vision of the Brāhman seers, and yet it came to play a great role in later Ilinduism 102-specifically, in the myths of Vișnu Anantaśāyin, the giant divine dreamer of the world, who bear's the universe in huis belly, lets it flower as a lotus from his navel, and takes it back again into his everlasting substance.108 Equally prominent is the Hindu female counterpart, the all-containing Goddess Mother, who brings all beings forth from her universal womb, nourishes them, and, devouring them again, takes everything back.104 "These figures have been adapted in Hinduism 10 the Vedic myth of the Cosmic Marriage, but the incompatibility of the two sets of symbols still is evident; for though the world of crcatures is described as being born, it is also described as constituting the body of the divine being, whercas in the Jaina vision there is no such incongruity since the jīvas are the atoms of life that circulate through the cosmic organism. An omniscient all-seeing seer and saint (kevalin) can actually watch the process of unending metabolism taking place throughout the frame, observing the cells in their continual transmutations; for his individual consciousness has been broadened to such a degree that it corresponds to the infinite consciousness of the giant universal being. With his inward spiritual eye he beholds the lifeatoms, infinite in number, circulating continually, each en
101 Supra, p. 224, note 44.
102 For the term "Hinduism," as distinct from "Brāhmanism," cf. supra, p. 77, note 35.
108 Zimmer, Mylhs and Symbols, pp. 35-53. 104 1b., pp. 189-216.
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