Gandhi Before Gandhi

Author(s): Bipin Doshi, Priti Shah
Publisher: Jain Academy Educational Research Center Promotion Trust Mumbai

Page 88

A GANDHI BEFORE GANDHI
something they contradict themselves by not extending and applying the law of causation to what they call the First principle' Dr. Paul Deussen, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kiel, in Germany, very truly says, with reference to Causality ("Elements of Metaphysics") "As space and times are without limits, so also the net of causality is necessarily without beginning or end.
coming out of something. The state only is created. This book in a sense is created because all the particles are put together, having been in a different state. The form of the book is created. There was a beginning of this book and there will be an end. In the same manner, with any form of matter, whether this form lasts for moments or for centuries, if there was a beginning there must be an end. We say that there are both preservation and destruction in the many forces working around us.
The Jain philosophy teaches that the universe-the totality of realities.is infinite in space and eternal in time, but the same universe, considered from the standpoint of the manifestations of the different realities, is finite in space and non-eternal in time. Particular parts of the universe have their cyclic laws corresponding to the laws of evolution and involution.
Universe is not merely a congeries of substances, heaped together and set in activity by an extra-cosmic creator, but is a system by itself, governed by laws inherent in its very constitution. Law is not to be understood in the sense of a rule of action prescribed by an authority, but as a proposition which exercises the constant or regular order of certain phenomena or the constant mode of action of things or beings under certain definite circumstances. It is not a command, but a formula to which things or beings confirm precisely, and without exception follow under definite
rules, internal and external
Therefore we say that the universe from one standpoint is eternal and from another non-eternal. The totality of the universe taken as a whole is eternal. It is a collection of many things. That collection contains the same particles every moments, therefore as a collection it is eternal; but there are so many parts of that collection and so many entities in it, all of which have their different states which occur at different times, and each part does not retain the same state at all times. There is a change, there is destruction of any particular form and a new form comes into existence; and therefore if we look upon the universe from this standpoint it is non-eternal. With this Jain philosophy there is no idea, and no place for the idea of creation out of nothing. That idea, really speaking, is not entertained by any right thinking people.
(કોમરતા!
The Brahmins represent it by the syllable""Om; the first sound in this word represents the idea of creation, the second of preservation and the third of destruction (AUM).
What is God then?
નમો બાયરિયા, હમોવિઝાયાણી નિમો લોએ સવાસાણ 'કોઈકનારે HOTLIGHED કંગલારંપાર્સિી પઢમં હવઈ મંગલમ
Even those who believe in creation believe from a different standpoint than, this it cannot come into existence out of nothing, but is an emanation
What is God then? God, in the sense of an extra cosmic personal creator has no place in the Jain philosophy. It