Lord Mahavira and His Times

SR No.: 011080
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Kailashchandra Jain
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas
Publication Year: 1974
Total Pages: 427
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

Page 179

Lord Mahāvīra's. Religious Contemporaries and Sects
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rines of Pakudha. It is also somewhat different because the existence of Ākāśa (ether or space) is distinctly recognised, and it omits sukha and dukha. Śğlāöka identifies the doctrine of soul as a sixth category with the doctrine of the Bhagavad Gita, as well as with the Sankhya and some of the Saiva systems. There is no doubt about some sort of historical relationship existing between them.
VIEWS ABOUT ACTION AND THE SOUL
Like Kassapa, Kachchāyana denied not the appearance, but the reality of action and also asserted that the soul was really untouched by change and was therefore superior to good and evil. It is perhaps not too much to imagine that this doctrine was formulated in opposition to the doctrine of Samsāra according to which the soul suffered and was itself responsible for its sufferings. Gośāla accepted the process of Saṁsāra but gave of it a new explanation. Being apparently Brāhmanas, Kassapa and Kachchāyana were probably acquainted with the Upanishadic speculation and were still more radical in their denial of the real existence of the problem itself. THEORIES OF ETERNALISM AND NON-ACTION
The fragment of the Satra-kṣitāiga clearly shows that Kachchāyana adopted the Gotamaka or Eleatic postulatc of being that nothing comes out of nothing.? It appears from the fragments of both the Satraksilānga and the Samañña-phala-sulta that the term Eternalismo was strictly applied by Mahavira and Buddha to the doctrine of Kachchāyana. It also comes under the definition of what Mahāvīra calls Pluralism (Anikka
vāda).3
Mahāvīra and Buddha considered Kachchāyana's doctrinc to be a doctrine of non-action (akrijā-žādn). If the clements are ctcrnally existent and unchangeable by their very nature, if clicy incchanically unite or separate by Picasure and Pain inlicrcnt in cach of tlıcm, if there is no volitional activity or consciousness, there is no ground for the conception of or dir
1. 2. 3.
Salra, 11-2. Standinga, IV; Digha, 1.13-17. Ibid. IV. 4.