Therefore, they need to be worshipped. The Jainas
worship the Tirthakaras not because they are gods, nor because they are
powerful in any other way, but because they are human, and yet divine, as
every one is divine, in his essential nature. The worship of the
Tirthakaras is to remind us that they are to be kept a ideals before us in
our journey to self-realization. No favours are to be sought by means of
worship, nor are they competent to bestow favours on the devotees. The
main motive of worship of the Tirthakaras, therefore, is to emulate the
example of the perfect beings. if possible, at least to remind us that the
way to perfection lies in the way they have shown us. Even this worship of
Tirthamkaras arose out of the exigencies of social and religious existence
and survival and possibly as a psychological necessity. We find a few
temples of Gandhiji today; perhaps, there would be many more. The Buddha
has been deified.
Apart from the worship of Tirthakaras, we find a
pantheon of gods who are worshipped and from whom favours are sought. The
cult of the Yaksini worship and of other are attendant gods may be cited
as examples. This type of worship is often attended by the occult
practices and the tantric and mantric ceremonialism. Dr. P. B. Desai shows
that in Tamilnad Yaksini was allotted an independent status and raised to
a superior position which was almost equal to that of the Jina. In some
instances the worship of Yaksini appears to have superseded even that of
Jina.[10] Padmavati, Yaksini of Parsvanatha, has been elevated to the
status of a superior deity with all the ceremonial worship, in
Pombuccapura in Mysore area. These forms of worship must have arisen out
of the contact with other competition, faiths and with the purpose of
popularizing the Jaina faith in the context of the social and religious
competition. The cult of Jvalamalini with its Tantric accompaniments may
be mentioned as another example of this form of worship. The promulgator
of this cult was, perhaps, Helacarya of Ponnur. According to the
prevailing belief at that time, mastery over spells or Mantravidya was
considered as a qualification for superiority. The Jaina Acaryas claimed
to be master Mantravadins.[11] Jainism had to compete with the other Hindu
creeds. Yaksi form of worship must have been introduced in order to
attract the common men towards Jainism, by appealing to the popular forms
of worship.
However, such forms of worship are foreign to the Jaina
religion. They do not form an organic and constituent features of the
Jaina worship. These tendencies have been absorbed and assimilated, in the
struggle for existence and survival. We may, here, refer to the
inconceivable changes the Buddhist forms of worship have undergone in the
various countries of the world, like the Tantric forms of worship in
Tibetan Lamaism.
We have still some gods in Jaina cosmogony. They are
the devas, the gods living, in heavens like the Bhavanavasi, Vyantaravasi',
Jyotiska, and Kalpavasi. But they are part of the Samsara and not really
Gods in the sense of superior divine beings. They are just more fortunate
beings than men because of their accumulated good Karma. They enjoy better
empirical existence than men. But we, humans, can pride ourselves in that
the Gods in these worlds cannot reach moksa unless they are reborn as
human beings. They are not objects of worship. It is, therefore, necessary
for us to know the true nature of man and his place in society in which he
lives, moves and has his being.
NATURE OF MAN
I. Dignity and freedom of the human individual has been
a common principle for all philosophies and faiths, except perhaps for
Nietzsche. Marx emphasised the potentiality of man by denying God. Kant
exhorted us to treat every human individual as an end in himself and never
as a means. Democracies are based on the equality and dignity of every
human individual. In the Mahabharata we are told that there is nothing
higher than man.[12] According to the Jainas, the individual soul, in its
pure form is itself divine, and man can attain divinity by his own
efforts.
2. In India, the aim of philosophy was atma vidya.
atmanam viddhi was the cardinal injunction of the Upanisads. Yajnyavalkya
explains that all worldly objects are of no value apart from the self.[13]
Today we have a new Humanism where we are becoming increasingly aware of
the importance of man in this world. Philosophical interest has shifted
from nature to God and from God to man. Even the claim of absolute value
for science is being questioned. Man and his values are primary, their
primacy has to be acknowledged by any philosophy.[14]
But with all these philosophical interests, the real
nature of man has been eluding us. Attempts have been made to know him.
But there has not been an agreed conception of man easily to be understood
and accepted by the common man.
There were philosophers like Protagoras who reduced man
to mere sensations. The Theaetetus describes the Sophist conception of the
individual as a complex of changes interacting with other forces, and
seeking to satisfy the desires.[15] In English empiricism, Hume denied
everything including the human soul, except impressions and ideas. The
Human tendency was recently revived by the Cambridge philosophers who
brought philosophy, to the brink of extinction. Perennial problems of
philosophy including, the conceptions of soul were dismissed as nonsense.
Like the men chained against the walls of the cave in The Republic the
empiricists refused to see beyond what they would like to affirm. In
ancient Indian thought, Carvakas led us to similar conclusions. It is said
that the Buddhists denied a permanent soul. The Buddha was silent about
the metaphysical problems. His disciples analysed soul as an aggregate of
matter, feelings and sensations. Man is a psychological personality, and
when it is analysed away Sunya is realised.
However, soul of man has emerged as a permanent and
eternal principle imperishable in nature. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle
accsepted soul as pure eternal and imperishable principle. plato talked of
the immorality of the soul. In india the outlook in Rigveda is empirical.
The Gods were invoked to give cows and prosperity in this world. The idea
of a permanent soul has yet to be evolved. In the Upanisads the conception
of a permanent soul gained predominance. In the Dialogue between Prajapati
and Indra we get a progressive development of tbe definition of the soul
in four stages as i) bodily, ii) empirical, iii) transcendental and iv)
the absolute [16] 'The next step was to identify the self with the
Absolute. As Radhakrishnansays, we may not understand the truth of the
saying 'tbat thou art tat tvam asi, but that does not give us a sufficient
right to deny it.[17]
The idea of the self has been a fundamental conception
in Jaina philosophy. Tbe existence of the soul is a presupposition. The
soul is described from the phenomenal and the noumenal points of view. All
things in this world are divided into living and non-living. From the
phenomenal point of view, the soul is described as possessing empirical
qualities. It is possesed of four pranas. It is the lord, the doer, and
the enjoyer of the fruit of Karma. As a potter considers himself a maker
and enjoyer of the clay pot, so the mundane soul is the doer of things and
the enjoyer of the fruits of Karma. From the noumenal point of view, soul
is pure and perfect. It is pure consciousness. It is unbound, untouched
and not other than itself. Man is the jiva bound by matter and it assumes
gross physical body. Through the operation of Karma the soul gets
entangled in the wheel of Samsara. When it is embodied, it is affected by
the environment physical, social and spiritual in different ways. When it
identifies itself with the various functions of the bodily and social
environment. William James distinguishes between the self as known or the
`me', the empirical ego, and the self as knower or the I. On the same
basis, distinction between the states of the soul as Bahiratnamn,
Antaratman and Paramatman has been made.
3. Apart from the real nature of man it would be
necessary to know him as an individual in his physical and social
environment . As an empirical individual man lives in this life and is
influenced by the environment. To some extent he is a product of the
environment, at the same time shaping the other selves. Man cannot be
separated from nature. He is a part and parcel of the Interacting forces
in nature. In this sense, individual men including the heaven born
prophets are products of environment and social heritage. They also
contribute to the development of the social life. This universe is a vale
of soul making . There is a cosmic purpose in the incessant struggle of
the individuals in this world. The purpose as translated in human
efforts, is the perfection of men.
We have seen that for the attainment of this end, we
need not depend on higher entity called God. Efforts of individual men are
more important than the forces that work outside man. This brings us to
the problem of the human ideals.
4. As a social being, development of man depends on the
ends that he places before himself and the means used for the attainment
for those ends. The Greeks, as also the Vedic Aryans were full of zeal for
life and its beauties. The consummation of life's end was to perfect life.
Truth, beauty and goodness were the highest human values. Subjectivism of
Protagoras would have led him to ethical relativism. What is good for one
man may not be the same for the other. But Protagoras was a teacher of
virtues and was accepted as wise man. Still the earlier Sophists
ex-pressed nihilistic Views. Polus, a disciple of Gorgias, admired
political power in a tyrant, though evil it may be. Thrasymachus sneered
at conventional justice as mere obedience to the wishes of those in
power. The tyrant is the happiest man.[18] So was the philosopher Netzsche
fascinated by power. He preached the philosophy of power. There were
others, like Aristippus, who aimed at leisures as the highest end in
life. Pleasure was to be sought by the Carvakas in ancient Indian
thought. Greatest happiness of the greatest number was a modified version
of this end.
However from pleasure to virtue is a long way. Socratic
formula that virtue is knowledge expressed the basic insight into the
synthesis of theory and practice. Plato mentioned four cardinal virtues
temperance courage, justice and wisdom. Aristotle distinguished virtues
into the practical and the intellectual virtues, Both are necessary for
the development of man.
In ancient Indian thought, four cardinal human values
have been mentioned. Artha, Kama, Dharma and Moksa are to be realised by
man. They represent a hierarchy of human values. The ultimate ideal is
Moksa. It is freedom from the bonds of life. Moksa as a release from the
wheel of Samsara and in its positive aspect as oneness with the Highest
was becoming gradually clear in the Upanisads. The state of perfection
need not be attained only after shedding off this bodily existence. It is
possible to attain such a state in this life only. The conception of
Jivanmukti has played an important part in the ancient thought. Kramamukti
admits the possibility of Kramamukti. Apart from the highest ideal of
moksa, other ideals are to be
progressively realised as various levels of life. Over
emphasis of one ideal will lead to a partial development of civilization.
All the values are true and need each other. This is the synoptic point of
view.
