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Jaina philosophy
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The issues in Jaina philosophy developed concurrently with those that emerged in Buddhist and
Hindu philosophy. The period from the second century bc to about the tenth century ad evinces a
tremendous interaction between the schools of thought and even an exchange of ideas, borne out
especially in the rich commentary literature on the basic philosophical works of the respective
systems. Jaina philosophy shares with Buddhism and Hinduism the aim of striving, within its
own metaphysical presuppositions, for absolute liberation (mokṣa or nirvāṇa) from the factors
which bind human existence. For the philosophical systems of Indian thought, ignorance (of
one’s own nature, of the nature of the world and of one’s role in the world) is one of the chief
such factors, and Jainism offers its own insights into what constitutes the knowledge that has the
soteriological function
so·te·ri·ol·o·gy (s½-tîr”¶-¼l“…-j¶) n. The theological doctrine of salvation as effected
by Jesus.
of overcoming ignorance. Jainism is not exempt from the problem of distinguishing the religious
and/or mystical from the ‘philosophical’; the Indian tradition has no exact equivalents for these
categories as they are usually employed in Western thought.
The significance ascribed to knowledge is reflected in the attention given to epistemology and
logic by Jaina philosophers. The first systematic account was given by the fourth- or fifthcentury philosopher Umāsvāti, who distinguished two types of knowledge: partial knowledge,
which is obtained from particular standpoints, and comprehensive knowledge, which is of five
kinds – sensory knowledge, scriptural knowledge, clairvoyance, telepathy and omniscience. Of
these, the first two are held to be indirect (consisting in, or analogous to, inference) and the
remainder are direct; Jainism is unique among Indian philosophies in characterizing sensory
knowledge as indirect. The aim of the treatises on knowledge is to present what the Jainas
believe would be known in the state of omniscience, as taught by Mahāvīra.
Mahavira
The last Jaina saviour, he was a contemporary of the Buddha, and died about 500 BC. His childhood was
distinguished by miracles. One day he overcame a serpent that threatened his friends, thus earning the title
Mahavira, ‘great hero’. During the lifetime of his parents Mahavira was an ordinary householder, married with a
daughter, but as soon as his mother and father who were devotees of Parsva committed the rite of sallekhana,
fasting unto death, he decided that there was no longer any hindrance to his own ascetic inclinations. At the age of
thirty-two he distributed his personal possessions to the needy and commenced his inner quest, a terrestrial event
that brought an immediate response from the heavens; the firmament glowed like a lake covered in lotus flowers,
the air was filled with the sounds of celestial music, and gods descended to pay their respects to Mahavira.
For a time the names of Mahavira and Makkhali Gosala were linked together, possibly they inhabited the same
religious community. The teachings of Gosala had the distinction of the Buddha's condemnation as the very worst
of all contemporary erroneous doctrines. He likened them to an hempen garment—uncomfortable and giving no
protection against the cold of winter or the heat of summer. Gosala argued that all beings, all created things, attain
perfection in the course of time. There was nothing that could be done to hasten this process spread over the span
of countless rebirths. The split between the two hermits was caused by their different views on the freedom of the
will. Asserting traditional Jaina belief, Mahavira taught that the individual soul, the transmigrating jiva, was free to
make its own escape through a sustained act of self-renunciation. In contrast with the attitude of the Buddha,
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Mahavira regarded the soul as physically bound and fettered by karmic matter, so that the path to release,
spiritual ascension to the top of the universe, involved complete disentanglement. Jaina monks wore a veil over
the mouth and even lay folk were forbidden to drink water after sunset, lest some small insect be swallowed. Thus
ahisma, ‘non-violence’, is carried to an extreme.
The utter renunciation of the tirthankara, the last of whom was Mahavira, is perhaps the most austere symbol ever
devised. It stands at the impersonal end of the spectrum of ancient myth, far removed from the Occidental belief
in the survival of the personality. In India there has never existed a Hades for the shadowy dead, nor an Elysium for
the translated living. Reincarnation excludes individual personality.
(born traditionally c. 599, Kshatriyakundagrama, India — died traditionally 527 BCE, Pavapuri) Indian
reformer of the Jain monastic community, last of the 24 Tirthankaras, or saints, who founded Jainism. Born
into the warrior caste, he renounced the world at age 30 for a life of extreme asceticism. He had no
possessions, not even rags to cover his body or a bowl for alms or food, and after 12 years he attained kevala,
the highest stage of perception. An advocate of nonviolence and vegetarianism, he revived and reorganized
Jain doctrine and established rules for its monastic order. His followers made five vows of renunciation (see
Jain vrata).
Omniscience is an intrinsic condition of all souls; however, due to the influence of karma since
beginningless time this essential quality of the soul is inhibited.
The Jaina interest in logic arose, as with the other schools, through a consideration of inference
as a mode of knowledge. The methods and terminology of the Nyāya school were heavily drawn
upon; this is evident in Siddhasena Divākara’s Nyāyāvatāra (The Descent of Logic) (c. fifth
century), one of the first detailed presentations of Jaina logic. The Jainas used logic to criticize
other schools and defend their own. The acquaintance with other traditions that this implies is a
notable aspect of classical Jainism; their interest in other schools, coupled with their belief in
collecting and preserving manuscripts, makes the Jaina corpus very important for the study of
classical Indian thought.
According to Jaina ontology, reality is divided into the two basic principles of sentience and nonsentience, neither of which is reducible to the other. The former is manifested in souls, of which
there are an infinite number, and the latter in the five basic substances, which are matter, dharma
and adharma (factors posited to explain movement and rest), space and time. Matter consists of
atoms; as it becomes associated with the soul, it gets attached to it, becomes transformed into
karma and thereby restricts the functions of consciousness. This pernicious process can only be
reversed through ascetic practices, which ultimately lead to liberation.
Ascetic practices constitute the basis of Jaina ethics, the framework of which are the ‘five great
vows’, according to which the ascetics vow to live. These are: nonviolence towards all forms of
life, abstinence from lying, not taking what is not given, celibacy and renunciation of property.
Nonviolence is strongly emphasized, since violence produces the greatest amount of karma.
Hence great care has to be exercised at all times, especially because injury of life forms should
be avoided also in plants, water, fire, etc. The minimization of physical activity to avoid injury is
therefore an important ideal of Jaina asceticism. Inspiration for constant ethical behaviour is
provided by a contemplation of the lives of the twenty-four Jinas, of whom Mahāvīra was the
last. Though human, these ‘conquerors of the passions’ are worshipped as divine beings because
of their conduct in the world and knowledge of the nature of ultimate reality.
1 Ontology and metaphysics
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2 Epistemology and logic
3 Ethics
4 Kundakunda, Umāsvāti and Siddhasena Divākara
5 Other notable philosophers
1 Ontology and metaphysics
Jaina thought has retained several elements of ancient natural philosophy, such as the theory of
atoms, explaining the nature of the universe without recourse to a creator god, and the
interpretation of karma as particles of subtle matter (see Karma and rebirth, Indian conceptions
of §6). The Jainas hold an ancient theory in which ultimate reality is divided into two basic
categories, one which represents the principle of sentience or consciousness as such, usually
translated as ‘soul’ (jīva), and one which represents the non-sentient principle (ajīva). In their
intrinsic natures they are exclusive categories in the sense that, despite their coexistence (as in
human beings), the one cannot take on the nature of the other. Both are ontological substances
(dravya) in that reality or existence as such can ultimately be reduced to these two eternal,
uncreated and indestructible categories (see Ontology in Indian philosophy §1). The soul is best
described as a monad, of which there are a countless number, each independent but with the
same principle of sentience as its chief characteristic, and each able to expand or contract
according to the size of the body which it inhabits. Souls intrinsically possess unlimited qualities
of bliss and energy, and are omniscient.
The non-sentient principle is a generic term for the following five substances. First, matter
(pudgala) represents the basic stuff or raw material out of which the universe is composed.
Matter is made up of atoms, each of which occupies one point of space, and which can be with or
without form and can be inhabited by souls. Objects come into being through a combination or
aggregation of atoms and change is explained not through destruction or creation of atoms but as
a rearrangement of the basic stuff. Together with the view that atoms can have the qualities of
colour, taste, touch and smell, Jaina philosophy evolved the theory of substance, quality and
mode (see §4) to explain the world in terms of identity and difference, depending on the
standpoint and purpose. Matter is crucial for the philosophical anthropology of Jainism because
it is matter that directly affects the nature of the soul in the sense that, by becoming converted
into karma, it restricts the intrinsic functions of the soul, inhibiting right faith, right knowledge
and right conduct. Precisely how this operates is explained later in this section with reference to
the so-called ‘seven basic truths’ which form the basis of Jaina metaphysics.
The second and third substances, called dharma and adharma, are posited for technical reasons.
They stand respectively for the factors that assist movement and rest, without themselves being
set into motion or coming to rest. They are formless, coextensive with worldly space and without
qualities. The function of these two substances is usually explained on the analogy of water and
fish. Just as water is not responsible for the fish’s movement or its being stationary but makes
these possible, so too dharma and adharma offer the condition for the possibility of movement
or rest to souls and matter.
The fourth substance, ether or space (ākāśa), does not itself occupy space but is space itself,
giving the other substances the place they require in which to exist. According to Jaina
cosmology, space is the only substance that encompasses both the world (loka) and the nonworld
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(aloka). The world is divided into the underworld or hells, in which souls reap the fruits of their
unmeritorious deeds, the middle world, which corresponds to our world and in which only
human beings can perform the necessary austerities for absolute freedom, the world of different
kinds of heaven, in which souls reap the fruits of their meritorious acts and, finally, the world
above the heavens, to which a liberated soul (one that has completely rid itself of the burden of
all its positive and negative karma) rises, to remain there in its pristine nature. The nonworld
serves no purpose at all and is described as being empty. However, it demarcates the area along
which liberated souls eternally exist (see Cosmology and cosmogony, Indian theories of §3).
Time (kāla) is the fifth non-sentient substance; it has no spatial points, its smallest unit being
called a moment (samaya), out of which the other units of time – minutes, hours, and so on – are
then derived. Time enables change to take place without itself changing. On the absolute level,
time exists as an undifferentiated continuum for the liberated souls. On the cosmological level, it
has two broad phases or eras, and is described on the analogy of a wheel with twelve spokes. The
world goes through six phases of gradual descent, representing the decline of values, then
through six phases of gradual ascent, representing a steady improvement of values. Both phases
involve fantastic spans of time. The Śvetāmbara tradition hesitates to accord time the status of an
independent substance, though it uses it as a category necessary to explain the course of the
world. The Digambaras and the Śvetāmbaras, the two main groups of Jainism, differ in several
philosophically minor issues.
What the above ontological structure of reality does not do is explain the original cause of the
association of the souls with the other substances, and especially how karma originally attaches
itself to the soul to its detriment. This problem applies mutatis mutandis to all schools of Indian
thought which speak of the possibility of liberation from the bondage of karma, where the basic
issue is simply presupposed and is either left unanswered or euphemistically avoided by saying,
as the Jainas also do, that the association between the souls and the world has been so since
beginningless time (anādi). The karma theory was accepted a priori without the need to explain a
first cause and the issue does not seem to be regarded as a problem. Moreover, Jainism shares
with Buddhism and Hinduism the basic assumption that the human situation is characterized by
suffering and pain; more important than seeking the first cause is what can be done to free
oneself from this predicament. Past deeds cannot be undone, but once the basic presuppositions
are accepted – especially that the process of karma, which is responsible for the cycles of
existence, can be interfered with – the individual is free to opt for the path that promises the goal
of absolute freedom. The Jainas do not have recourse to a creator god who sets the universe and
life in the world in motion. Everything operates through its own inner dynamics and the role of
the individual is to meditate on the basic truths of reality.
Jaina metaphysics is based on seven truths or fundamental principles (tattva) which are an
attempt to explain the human predicament. The first two are the two ontological categories of the
soul and the non-soul discussed above, namely the truth that they exist. For the remaining five
truths the factor of karma has to be brought into play because all are connected to it. The third
truth is that through the interaction, technically called yoga, between the two substances, soul
and non-soul, matter flows into (āsrava) the soul, clings to it, becomes converted into karma and
– the fourth truth – acts as a factor of bondage (bandha), restricting the manifestation of the
consciousness intrinsic to it. The fifth truth states that a stoppage (saṃvara) of new karma is
possible through asceticism. An intensification of this burns up the existing karma – this sixth
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truth is expressed by the word nirjarā. The final truth is that when the soul is freed from the
influence of karma, it reaches the goal of Jaina teaching, which is liberation (mokṣa).
It must be noted that the later tradition included two more categories after bondage (bandha),
namely puṇya and pāpa, which may be translated as ‘good’ and ’bad’. They refer to two kinds of
bondage caused by one’s deeds. The ethical implications of these terms underscore the
significance of Jaina ethics for Jaina soteriology.
2 Epistemology and logic
Epistemology and logic are closely linked in the Indian tradition because logical issues are
largely associated with problems related to inference which, in turn, is regarded as a means or
instrument of knowledge. The occupation with abstract, logical ideas related to inference was the
favourite topic of the Nyāya school, particularly in its Navya-Nyāya form, which flourished
between about the thirteenth and the seventeenth century. Jaina logic adopts much of the Nyāya
language and method (see Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika §6).
The history of Indian logic can be traced back at least to pre-Christian works on Indian medicine
in which physicians are advised to know about a long list of categories, epistemological and
logical, when participating in public debates. In the commentary literature to the basic
philosophical treatises, especially after the third century ad, epistemology takes a prominent
position, each school presenting its own theory of knowledge after criticizing other views.
Jainism made its own unique contribution to this mainstream development by also occupying
itself with the basic epistemological issues, namely, with those concerning the nature of
knowledge, how knowledge is derived, and in what way knowledge can be said to be reliable.
These issues feature in the Indian context in the form of the consistent attention paid to what
exactly constitutes cognition, the means of cognition, and the validity of cognition. The problems
dealt with in epistemology broadly served two functions. They represented an attempt to provide
the basis for an intelligible discourse on matters of common, everyday experience and, albeit
indirectly, to distinguish this area of discourse from what constitutes the knowledge of ultimate
reality. Thus Indian epistemology entails an implicit metaphysical concern when it is employed
in the context not only of the knowledge of one’s intrinsic nature but also of reality as such.
Knowledge for the Jainas takes place in the soul, which, without the limiting factor of karma, is
omniscient. Human beings have partial knowledge – the object of knowledge is known partially
and the means of knowledge do not operate to their full capacity. The Jainas have an intricate
theory of knowledge concerning the fundamental principles (tattva), and the first systematic
presentation of it was given by Umāsvāti (see §4) in the first chapter of his Tattvārthasūtra
(fourth or fifth century). The following is a summary of his theory; the bracketed numbers are
the relevant aphorisms. The knowledge of the basic Jaina truths is said to be obtained through
means or instruments of knowledge (pramāṇa) which can yield a comprehensive knowledge of
an object, and through particular standpoints which yield a partial knowledge (naya; 6) (see
Manifoldness, Jaina theory of). The first type of knowledge is of five kinds: sensory knowledge,
scriptural knowledge, clairvoyance, telepathy and omniscience (9–10), among which again the
first two are described as being indirect means of knowledge (parokṣa), with the others
furnishing direct knowledge (pratyakṣa; 11–12), by which it is meant that the object is known
directly by the soul (not, for example, as with inferring fire through the cognition of smoke).
Jainism is unique in the Indian tradition in regarding sensory perception as an indirect means of
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knowledge, because it does not take place directly through the soul, although some notable Jaina
thinkers (such as Akalaṅka and Māṇikyanandin) are exceptions.
Synonyms for sensory knowledge are remembrance, recognition, ‘induction’ and ‘deduction’, all
caused by the senses and the mind (13–14). Scriptural knowledge, which is based on sensory
knowledge, is of two, several or twelve kinds (20), depending on which scriptural works are
taken as authoritative. The range of sensory and scriptural knowledge extends to all the six
substances (soul and the five non-sentient substances), but not in all their modes (26).
Clairvoyance is possessed by divine and infernal beings, and can be obtained by human beings
and animals through a destruction and/or subsidence of the karma which hinders it (21–2). Its
scope is all entities that have form (27). Telepathy is of two kinds, which are distinguished on the
basis of purity and infallibility (23–4). Its scope is infinitely greater than that of clairvoyance
(28). The scope of omniscience, on the other hand, extends to all substances in all their modes
simultaneously (29). Sensory knowledge, scriptural knowledge and clairvoyance are explicitly
referred to as means of knowledge that may also be erroneous (31).
The basic division of knowledge into the direct and indirect types is generally retained by all
Jaina thinkers, though with differences in the way in which they are further classified. For
example, Akalaṅka (c. eighth century) regarded sensory knowledge as a direct means of
knowledge, and Māṇikyanandin (c. ninth century) evolved a much more complex system with
several more subvarieties. When a description of inference as a means of knowledge is given, the
occasion is used to discuss logical issues in detail. Jaina logic applies the Nyāya language within
its own metaphysical presuppositions. Some of the basic features of Indian logic which the
Jainas also adopt involve: (1) the use of inference in the accepted standard form, to convince
others of the validity of an argument, clearly distinguishing the three basic terms of the major,
the middle and the minor; (2) an example or instance, which can also be in a negative form,
based on the invariable concomitance of or inseparable connection between the middle term of
an argument and all cases in which the major term obtains; and (3) a concern with types of
fallacies based not only on pervasion but also on the relation of the different terms with each
other and the locus in which they apply (see Inference, Indian theories of).
With his Nyāyāvatāra (The Descent of Logic), Siddhasena Divākara (c. fifth century) is perhaps
the first Jaina thinker who deals with these and other issues in Jaina logic. A few selected
examples will show how Jainism imbibed the logic of the Nyāya school, the structure of which it
applied to prove its own arguments and to show errors in the arguments of others. The classical
example for an understanding of the abstract ideas expressed here is that of smoke and fire, the
basic elements of which, as they feature in a five-step inferential argument, are: (1) the theory –
the hill (minor term) possesses fire (major term); (2) the cause or reason – because of smoke
(middle term); (3) the example based on invariable concomitance – wherever there is smoke
there is fire (as in a kitchen); (4) the application of the theory – similarly the mountain has
smoke; and (5) the conclusion – therefore it is the same, that is, has fire.
A statement expressive of the reason (i.e., the mark or the middle term, called hetu) which is
inseparably connected with that which is to be proved (i.e., the major term, called sādhya)
having been composed of the minor term (called pakṣa, signifying a side or place), etc., is called
an inference for the sake of others (parārthānumāna).
(Nyāyāvatāra, stanza 13; trans. S.C. Vidyabhusan)
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Where the inseparable connection of the major term (sādhya) and the middle term (sādhana or
hetu) is shown by homogeneousness (sādharmya), the example is called a homogeneous one, on
account of the connection (between those terms) being recollected.
(stanza 18)
The reason (i.e., the middle term called hetu) has been defined as that which cannot exist except
in connection with the major term (sādhya); the fallacy of the reason (hetvābhāsa) arises from
nonconception, doubt or misconception about it (the middle term).
(stanza 22)
The Indians did not develop a system for presenting their abstract ideas symbolically; natural
language (pre-eminently Sanskrit), used in such a technical way that only the specialist can
decipher the arguments, served the function. However, there have been several successful
contemporary attempts to translate Indian logic into the terminology of modern Western logic
(Ingalls 1951; Matilal 1968, 1971; Staal 1960).
3 Ethics
Jaina ethics evolved out of the rules for the ascetic, which served as the model, with necessary
changes, for the laity as well. The basic ascetic rules are encapsulated in the so-called five great
vows (mahāvratas) ascribed to Mahāvīra, which seem to be a summary of Indian asceticism as a
whole from ancient times. The first and foremost of these is nonviolence, which entails total
abstinence in thought, word and deed from injury to all life forms. The principle of life is the
souls which inhabit atoms, so Jainism emphasizes extreme care with reference not only to plant
and animal life forms but also to those in earth, water, fire and air. The vow of nonviolence is
extended to include not making another perform acts of violence and not approving them in any
way. Further, ascetics, who are usually wandering mendicants, are required to stay in one area
during the monsoon to avoid unintentionally disturbing and harming life forms in and as a result
of the abundance of water. To avoid inadvertently injuring insects, certain groups of ascetics
even cover their mouths and noses, and carry a whisk to keep insects away. The vow of not
eating after sunset for the same reason is an ascetic rule and one which is considered to be
ethically meritorious when practised by householders.
The other vows are: to abstain from lying, and to take care not to use violent or harmful speech;
not to take what is not given; to lead a life of celibacy; and to renounce attachment to the objects
of the world, that is, to renounce possession of property.
Jainism’s extreme emphasis on nonviolence is grounded in its metaphysics. Violence is
responsible for the maximum amount of karma that can be accumulated by the soul, and since
liberation is possible only when karma is completely destroyed, the task is reduced through an
avoidance of violent deeds. Physical activity per se is responsible for the accumulation of karma;
abstinence from it is symbolized by the famous iconic representations of ascetics standing
upright over such long periods that vines grow up their legs – physical control represents the
mental control that is also necessary to avoid subtle, inner movement. With the axiom
‘nonviolence is the highest religion’, Jainism summarizes the basis of its ethics and religious life.
The ascetic vows are mirrored in the rules for what the laity should do to exemplify an ethical
life. The vow of chastity is relaxed for householders, with sexual contact restricted to the married
partner; bearing in mind the ascetic’s great vow of chastity, however, restraint is enjoined as a
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virtue. Other vows which are included in the religious life of devotees include: nonattachment to
property and possessions, and the aim of leading a simple life; religious giving or donation;
eschewing excessive and unnecessary travel; fasting on auspicious days of the Jaina calendar.
The mutual reliance of ascetics and laity is evident throughout the history of Jainism. The
ascetics do not cook, and rely on the devotees for their daily subsistence, and the laity require the
ascetics for their religious teaching and advice. Confession of ethical transgressions belongs to
the religious life of both ascetics and laity, who atone for them by penances of religious
purification, the aim being to reduce or even completely annihilate the karmic effect of the
infringement.
Jainism, together with Buddhism, shows how a religious and virtuous life is possible without the
idea of a creator god to whom one can turn, one who is ultimately made responsible for the
human condition. Models for ethical life in Jainism are provided by the biographies of the
twenty-four Jinas, the conquerors of the passions, of whom Mahāvīra was the last. Indeed, they
are worshipped as divine beings, even though the tradition represents them as human beings who
through their extreme asceticism gained an insight into the nature of reality, on account of which
they are regarded as omniscient. Their lives serve as a guiding principle and, according to the
tradition, an emulation of their virtues can lead one to the same goal of liberation that they
achieved.
Under the rubric of ethics the issue of voluntary death may be mentioned. Inscriptional evidence
records its occurrence throughout the history of Jainism and even in contemporary times, though
it has been rare since about the twelfth century. This kind of death, open to both ascetics and
laity, is a death that literally makes ‘the physical body and the internal passions emaciated’
(sallekhanā; Pūjyapāda on Tattvārthasūtra V, 22); often it serves to accelerate the death process
already in progress. Jainism contrasts this with death that occurs through suicide, which the
Jainas eschew because passions such as ‘attachment, aversion or infatuation’ are involved in
suicidal death. By virtue of its excellence, the passionless death (which is performed under strict
conditions), is regarded as the most effective ascetic practice to rid the soul of binding passions
and to terminate an ethical life.
4 Kundakunda, Umāsvāti and Siddhasena Divākara
These three thinkers are the pioneers of Jaina philosophy whose basic ideas set the trend for most
later thinkers. Biographical details of all of them are mixed with legend and there are differences
of opinion as to whether they really wrote all the works ascribed to them; there is also a lack of
consensus about their dates.
Kundakunda. If recent research is correct in considering him to have belonged to the second or
third century ad, then this would make him the first significant and independent thinker of the
post-canonical period whose views are accepted as representing the essence of Jaina thought.
Although he was a pioneering Digambara thinker, probably from South India, appreciation for
his views also comes from the Śvetāmbara sect of Jainism. He was also known as Padmanandi.
The name Gṛdhrapiccha, erroneously used for him since about the fourteenth century, has led to
confusion because it is also an alias for Umāsvāti.
A total of eighty-four works on various themes are ascribed to Kundakunda, of which fifteen are
extant and three may be said to be philosophical masterpieces, all written in the Prakrit language.
These are the Pañcāstikāyasāra (Essence of the Five Existents), the Pravacanasāra (Essence of
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the Scripture) and the Samayasāra (Essence of the Doctrine). The Pañcāstikāyasāra is an
elementary work dealing with the Jaina substances (excluding time because it does not occupy
any spatial points) and the fundamental truths, to which two additional categories are added,
namely the meritorious and demeritorious acts related to karma (puṇya and pāpa). The
Samayasāra emphasizes, among other things, two standpoints mentioned in the canonical
literature which seem to have no relation to the standard sevenfold standpoint (see Manifoldness,
Jaina Theory of). These are the ‘definitive’ standpoint (niścayanaya), used synonymously with
the ‘pure’ or ‘transcendental’ (śuddha or paramārtha) standpoint, and the ‘mundane’ standpoint
(vyavahārikanaya). It is an illuminating work dealing with the nature of the soul and its
contamination by matter, and whether the soul’s intrinsic nature is in any way affected or
changed through karma bondage in so far as it is the doer and enjoyer of activities. An attempt is
made to reconcile these problems, solutions to which depend on the standpoint from which one
approaches the issues. The Pravacanasāra is an insightful work whose three sections clearly
delineate its scope: knowledge, the objects of knowledge, and conduct. The problem of
substance, quality and mode, is one of the pivotal issues in Jaina philosophy and a few points are
outlined below in order to show how Kundakunda deals with it. It forms the subject matter of the
second section of the Pravacanasāra, which the tenth-century commentator Amṛtacandra says
Kundakunda ‘properly discusses’.
The problem is basically that of how change in the world may be explained given the permanent,
eternal nature of the two basic substances of ultimate reality; this has obvious implications for
the essential nature of the soul. Kundakunda begins the section with the statement: ‘The object of
knowledge is made up of substances, which are said to be characterized by qualities, and with
which, moreover, are (associated) the modifications’ (Pravacanasāra II, 1; trans. A.N.
Upadhye). The basic problem is then evident when he says: ‘There can be no origination without
destruction, nor is there destruction without origination; origination and destruction are not
possible in the absence of permanent substantiality’ (II, 8). How ‘origination’ and ‘destruction’,
which in fact refer to change, are to be understood is expressed by Kundakunda in typical Jaina
language in II, 19: ‘The substance forever retains its position, its own nature, as endowed with
positive and negative conditions according as it is looked at from the substantial and the
modificational viewpoints.’ This is further elaborated:
All substances are nondifferent from the substantial viewpoint, but again they are different from
the modificational view-point, because of the individual modification pervading it for the time
being. According to some modification or the other it is stated that a substance exists, does not
exist, is indescribable, is both or otherwise.
(II, 22–3)
What Kundakunda means by origination and destruction is distinctively Jainist and is clarified
later in the same section: ‘In this world, in which modifications originate and pass away at every
moment, nothing is absolutely produced or destroyed; what is the production of one modification
is the destruction of another; and thus origination and destruction are different’ (II, 27). The
change that occurs in matter is understandable on the analogy of objects and colour. Just as gold
(regarded here as a substance), for example, can have not only different shades of colour (with
colour being its basic quality) but also different forms (with the object made out of gold being its
modification), so too all substances retain their substantiality despite the apparent destruction of
their qualities and modes. The situation is more complicated with the soul substance. The
problem is technical, and relates to two ‘operations’ (upayogas) ascribed to the soul, namely
9
‘indeterminate intuition’ and ‘determinate knowledge’; these operations are described as two
qualities (guṇas) of the soul. The concern is with the unity or identity of the soul and involves
the question of whether the two upayogas operate in the soul simultaneously or in succession,
and if in succession, which is first, and whether they maintain their distinctness in the state of
omniscience. Kundakunda maintains that they operate successively at the mundane level and
simultaneously at the transcendental level of omniscience. His view, which is also held by
Umāsvāti, represents the attitude of the Digambara sect and is opposed, for example, by
Siddhasena Divākara, who, in regarding quality and mode as synonyms, says that they are not
separate operations in the state of omniscience. His view represents the general Śvetāmbara
standpoint, based on the fact that the canonical literature distinguishes only substance and
quality, without mentioning the standpoint connected with the modifications of a substance.
Umāsvāti. He is famous for the first Jaina work written in Sanskrit, called the Tattvārthasūtra or
Tattvārthādhigamasūtra (Mnemonics on the Meaning of the Fundamental Principles). Again,
biographical details are scanty and both the sects of Jainism claim him as one of their own (with
the Digambaras also calling him Umāsvāmī) and regard his work, in traditional Indian manner,
as authoritive for Jaina thought. His dates vary from the second to the fifth centuries ad, with
recent preference for the fourth or fifth centuries. Of the five works ascribed to him, the
Praśamaratiprakaraṇa (Treatise on the Love for Tranquility) – a popular work dealing with
ethical issues and addressed to ascetics and householders – and the Tattvārthasūtra are
philosophically important. There is an ongoing debate about whether, as the Śvetāmbaras
believe, a commentary on the Tattvārthasūtra was written by Umāsvāti himself, or whether, as
the Digambaras believe, the first commentary on it is Pūjyapūda’s fifth-century Sarvārthasiddhi
(Attainment of the Meaning of Everything). There are two versions of the work by the two sects,
with hardly any philosophically significant differences.
The Tattvārthasūtra contains a series of aphorisms, divided into ten chapters, which are
understandable only with a commentary. The value of the work is evident from the fact that
throughout the history of Jaina philosophy, every major thinker has written a commentary on it.
Until around the tenth century, the Digambara thinkers, such as Akalaṅka (c. eighth century) and
Vidyānandin (c. ninth century), took centre stage. They wrote in a difficult style and hardly any
research related exclusively to their writings has been done.
Commentators often took the opportunity to criticize other views and defend the Jaina
standpoint. For example, in his commentary on Umāsvāti’s aphorism on the means of knowledge
and the standpoints (Tattvārthasūtra I, 6), Vidyānandin enters into an interestingly detailed
debate with the Buddhists (even quoting from Dharmakīrti’s seventh-century work on the means
of knowledge, Pramāṇavārttika) regarding the knowledge of an object, namely, whether an
object is cognized as a whole or in parts. The issue is raised in the context of the Buddhist view
that an object as a whole does not exist, against which it is asserted that a part of an object, which
can be understood to be a whole in itself, cannot then be cognized, putting the Buddhist
standpoint in jeopardy. Vidyānandin, applying the Jaina theory of standpoints, says that both a
part of an object and the object as a whole are cognized from different standpoints.
Umāsvāti’s contribution lies in presenting the basic issues in Jaina philosophy in a systematic
form, so much so that his work usually forms the standard for Jaina thought as a whole. The
ontology, metaphysics and epistemology summarized in §§1–2 are based on his Tattvārthasūtra.
10
Siddhasena Divākara. It seems certain that Siddhasena lived in the fifth century ad and that he
wrote in Sanskrit and Prakrit. He is generally considered to have belonged to the Śvetāmbara
sect, although he is claimed by both the sects of Jainism as one of their own, serving as the first
Jaina logician for both. Apart from the canonical literature, there seems to be little influence
from other sources in his writings, despite similarities of ideas between him and, for example,
Kundakunda. Reference to Siddhasena’s work on logic, the Nyāyāvatāra, has been made in §2.
His second most important work on philosophy, written in Prakrit, is the Sammaisutta
(Mnemonics on Proper Understanding; Sanskrit, Sanmatisūtra), dealing with the seven Jaina
standpoints, knowledge and the objects of knowledge. It is in the last section that he clearly
discusses the issue of the standpoints, taking into consideration the quality of a substance, which
according to him is not sanctioned by Jaina scripture as a separate category.
Siddhasena is also credited with having written twenty-one short compositions, each consisting
of thirty-two verses (and simply called the ‘thirty-twos’), on a variety of themes, including
eulogies to Mahāvīra, critiques of Buddhist and Hindu schools, and an exposition of Jaina
concepts. The work on logic is also written in this form.
5 Other notable philosophers
A host of philosophers, some already referred to, have followed Kundakunda, Umāsvati and
Siddhasena. Suffice it to make a few remarks on the contribution of five further thinkers, to
cover the period until the seventeenth century. Haribhadra, perhaps of the eighth century,
belongs to the Śvetāmbara sect and is praised as a great teacher of Jainism. Apart from works on
classical yoga as a system of meditational practice, which he applies in the Jaina context, he is
famous for his compendium of six systems, the Ṣaḍdarśanasamuccaya, in which he includes
Jaina philosophy together with Buddhism and four Hindu systems. He evinces a trait common
among Jaina thinkers and evident already in Akalaṅka, namely an excellent acquaintance with
other systems of Indian thought so as to enter into authentic debate with them. Some scholars
(notably Halbfass 1981) have seen a connection between this and the emergence of the theory of
manifoldness which became the hallmark of Jainism.
There is a relative consensus about the dates of the polyhistor Hemacandra (1089–1172), whose
contribution lies especially in systematizing and upholding the Śvetāmbara tradition of Jainism.
Although his influence is stronger in the field of Jaina literature, insightful attacks on other
philosophical views are also evident, for example, in his Anyayogavyavacchedikā(Critique of
Other Schools). His treatise on yoga (Yogaśāstra), dealing with Jaina ethics, is still an exemplary
work.
Abhayadeva, active in the eleventh century, needs to be mentioned for his commentaries on the
Jaina canonical works. The value of the commentary literature in India lies not only in the
explication and clarification of basic texts, but also in the fact that commentators often present
views which they might not otherwise have found occasion to express. In his commentary on the
Sthānāṅgasūtra, for example, a canonical text which is a compendium of Jaina doctrine, ethics
and cosmology, Abhayadeva takes the opportunity to discuss epistemological issues.
Vādidevasūri (twelfth century) is not only famous as a Śvetāmbara thinker who defeated in a
public debate the Digambara thinker Kumudacandra, but for his excellent Syādvādaratnākara
(The Ocean of Manifoldness). This is a commentary on his own work on knowledge and
standpoints, inspired by the work of the ninth-century Digambara thinker Māṇikyanandin.
11
Yaśovijaya (1624–88) is perhaps the last intellectual giant of Jainism, praised not only for his
acumen as a logician, but also for his vast knowledge of Jainism and other traditions. This
erudite Śvetāmbara scholar is credited with up to a hundred works, including an attack on the
great logician of Navya-Nyāya, Raghunātha Śiromaṇi (early sixteenth century), and a
commentary on a work by Vidyānandin.
Jaina philosophy never really took the centre of the philosophical stage in India, but that does not
reduce its significance. Royal patronage from Mahāvīra’s time till about the sixteenth century,
especially in Gujarat and Karnataka, and the architectural masterpieces of its temples bear
witness to the social impact it has had throughout its history. Jaina monasteries were and are
centres of learning, and research undertaken since the early 1980s is gradually reaping the
benefit of the Jaina virtue of collecting and copying manuscripts of all disciplines for the sake of
acquiring religious merit. It is thanks to this that a Jaina scholar, Sukhlalji Sanghvi, was able to
publish in 1940 an original eighth-century work on Indian materialism by one Jayarāśi, based on
the only extant manuscript. Further, the European Indologist Erich Frauwallner, in a
posthumously published work (Frauwallner 1984), convincingly proves the original atheistic
beginnings of the Vaiśeṣika system on the basis of the information about it from Haribhadra. The
Jaina libraries contain a wealth of information relevant not only to philosophy but also to various
aspects of Indian studies which have yet to be researched. Unfortunately, studies in Jainism
suffer from a lack of published texts, though an earnest attempt has been made in the West and
by the various Jaina institutions in India to make available critical editions, translations and
studies. Clearly this has important implications for the study of the history of Indian philosophy.
How to cite this article:
SONI, JAYANDRA (1998). Jaina philosophy. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. London: Routledge. Retrieved September 23, 2010, from
http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/F005SECT5
Scientific Vision Of Lord Mahāvīra
http://www.herenow4u.net/index.php?id=68158
Mahavira
By
Sri Swami Sivananda
Mahavira was born in 599 B.C. He lived for 72 years. He abandoned home in 569 B.C. He
attained omniscience in 557 B.C. and entered into Nirvana in 527 B.C. He was the last
Tirthankara.
Mahavira lived a life of absolute truthfulness, a life of perfect honesty and a life of absolute
chastity. He lived without possessing any property at all.
12
Mahavira was born of Sidhatha, Raja of Kundalpura, and Queen Trisala, who was known by the
name Priya Karni. ‘Maha’ means great and ‘Vira’ means a hero. ‘Tirtha’ literally means a ford, a
means of crossing over. Metaphorically, it denotes a spiritual guide or philosophy which enables
one to cross over the ocean of recurring births in this world. ‘Kara’ means one who makes. The
whole word Tirthankara means a Jain holy teacher.
Mahavira is not the founder of Jainism. He revised the Jain doctrines. He was more a reformer
than the founder of the faith. In Jain metaphysics, "Time" is divided into cycles. It is claimed that
in each half-cycle, twenty-four Tirthankaras, at long intervals, preach anew the doctrines.
Mahavira was the twenty-fourth, and like the others, is claimed to have been omniscient.
Mahavira was also known by the names Vardhamana (i.e., ever advancing) and Sanmati. At the
age of eight he observed the twelve vows of Ahimsa, etc. He was obedient to his parents and
served them with great faith and devotion. He was an able statesman. He did not marry.
Mahavira was immersed in Self-contemplation. He knew that the pleasures of this world were
transitory and that they strengthened the letters of Karma. He knew that renunciation would lead
to the attainment of eternal bliss.
People were quite astonished at the virtuous nature of Mahavira at such a tender age. He was
very much interested in meditation. He cultivated the arts of music and literature. Thirty years of
Prince Vardhamana’s life passed off in this way.
Vardhamana saw, through his clairvoyant vision, that he had been passing through innumerable
births. He thought, "How many births have gone by fruitlessly! I clearly see that the Soul is
essentially separate from the Karma matter. I have still wasted away thirty years of my life. I
have not practised any penance. I have not renounced the world in order to attain pure
Knowledge. The infatuation which is at the root of all evils is not yet destroyed".
Prince Vardhamana became extremely penitent. He resolved to give up everything worldly. He
gave up attachment to his parents, friends and relatives. He thought over the twelve Anuprekshas
or matters of deep thinking according to the Jain scriptures:
1. All worldly things are temporary.
2. The Soul alone is the sole resort.
3. This world is beginningless and crooked.
4. There is nothing to help the Soul, but the Soul itself.
5. Body, mind, etc., are essentially separate from the Soul.
6. The Soul is essentially pure and the body, etc., are essentially impure.
7. The Soul’s bondage is due to the inflow of Karma in it.
8. Every being ought to stop this inflow.
9. Emancipation is attained when Karma is absolutely got rid of.
10. The emancipated Souls remain fit the foremost top of the filled spaces.
11. In this world, to have the birth of a human being and to meditate on the nature of the Soul are
the greatest blessings.
12. To have the three jewels as described by the Omniscient is the only morality.
13
Mahavira thought over these twelve things and decided finally that he must abandon home.
Mahavira’s mother said, "My beloved son, you will not be able to bear the severity of the
austerities. There is time yet for it. You must help your father in governing the kingdom. You
can become a monk after some years".
Mahavira said, "Adorable mother! All the objects of the world are evanescent like water bubbles.
Where can one get happiness in this world which is the abode of disease, sorrow, pain and death?
I must leave this world".
Mahavira distributed all his wealth to the poor with his own hands. He went to the forest. He
took off even the piece of cloth which he was wearing and became absolutely nude. He turned to
the north and said, "Salutation to the Siddhas!" He rooted out with his own hands five tufts of
hair from his head and became a monk.
Mahavira practised rigorous austerities. He fasted for many days. He meditated on the pure
nature of the Soul.
Mahavira was tested by the celestials. A group of handsome women surrounded him. But
Mahavira remained unmoved and unperturbed. He attained omniscience. He preached his
message of peace for thirty years after the attainment of omniscience. He wandered in Magadha,
Mithila, etc. Many kings became his disciples.
http://www.dlshq.org/saints/mahavira.htm
Lord Mahavir and Jain Religion
Complied by Pravin K. Shah
Jain Study Center of North Carolina
http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/mahavira.html
Lord Mahavir was the twenty-fourth and the last Tirthankara of the Jain religion. According to
Jain philosophy, all Tirthankaras were born as human beings but they have attained a state of
perfection or enlightenment through meditation and self realization. They are the Gods of Jains.
Tirthankaras are also known as Arihants or Jinas.
Tirthankara - One who establishes the four fold order (Monk, Nun, Layman, and Laywoman) of
religion.
Arihant - One who destroys his inner enemies like anger, greed, passion, ego, etc.
Jina - One who conquers his inner enemies like anger, greed, passion, ego, etc. The followers of
Jina are known as Jains.
Mahavir was born in 599 B.C. as a prince in Bihar, India. At the age of 30, he left his family and
royal household, gave up his worldly possessions, including clothing and become a monk.
He spent the next twelve years in deep silence and meditation to conquer his desires and feelings.
He went without food for long periods. He carefully avoided harming or annoying other living
beings including animals, birds, and plants. His ways of meditation, days of austerities, and
mode of behavior furnish a beautiful example for monks and nuns in religious life. His spiritual
pursuit lasted for twelve years. At the end he realized perfect perception, knowledge, power, and
bliss. This realization is known as keval-jnana.
14
He spent the next thirty years travelling on bare feet around India preaching to the people the
eternal truth he realized. He attracted people from all walks of life, rich and poor, kings and
commoners, men and women, princes and priests, touchables and untouchables.
He organized his followers, into a four fold order, namely monk (Sadhu), nun (Sadhvi), layman
(Shravak), and laywoman (Shravika). Later on they are known as Jains.
The ultimate objective of his teaching is how one can attain the total freedom from the cycle of
birth, life, pain, misery, and death, and achieve the permanent blissful state of one's self. This is
also known as liberation, nirvana, absolute freedom, or Moksha.
He explained that from eternity, every living being (soul) is in bondage of karmic atoms, that are
accumulated by its own good or bad deeds. Under the influence of karma, the soul is habituated
to seek pleasures in materialistic belongings and possessions. Which are the deep rooted causes
of self-centered violent thoughts, deeds, anger, hatred, greed, and such other vices. These result
in accumulating more karma.
He preached that right faith (samyak-darshana), right knowledge (samyak-jnana), and right
conduct (samyak-charitra) together will help attain the liberation of one's self.
At the heart of right conduct for Jains lie the five great vows:
Nonviolence (Ahimsa) - not to cause harm to any living beings
Truthfulness (Satya) - to speak the harmless truth only
Non-stealing (Asteya) - not to take anything not properly given
Chastity (Brahmacharya) - not to indulge in sensual pleasure
Non-possession/Non-attachment (Aparigraha) - complete detachment from people, places, and
material things.
Jains hold these vows at the center of their lives. The monks and nuns follow these vows strictly
and totally, while the common people try to follow the vows as far as their life styles will permit.
At the age of 72 (527 B.C.), Lord Mahavir died and his purified soul left the body and achieved
complete liberation. He became a Siddha, a pure consciousness, a liberated soul, living for ever
in a state of complete bliss. On the night of his salvation, people celebrated the Festival of Lights
(Dipavali) in his honor.
Significant points of the life
and teachings of Lord Mahavir.
The spiritual power and moral grandeur of Mahavir's teachings impressed the masses. He made
religion simple and natural, free from elaborate ritual complexities. His teachings reflected the
popular impulse towards internal beauty and harmony of the soul.
His message of nonviolence (Ahimsa), truth (Satya), non-stealing (Achaurya), celibacy (Brahmacharya), and non-possession (Aparigraha) is full of universal compassion. He said that, "A living
body is not merely an integration of limbs and flesh but it is the abode of the soul which
potentially has perfect perception (Anant-darshana), perfect knowledge (Anant-jnana), perfect
power (Anant-virya), and perfect bliss (Anant-sukha)." Mahavir's message reflects freedom and
spiritual joy of the living being.
15
Mahavir was quite successful in eradicating from human intellect the conception of God as
creator, protector, and destroyer. He also denounced the worship of gods and goddesses as a
means of salvation. He taught the idea of supremacy of human life and stressed the importance
of the positive attitude of life.
Lord Mahavir also preached the gospel of universal love, emphasizing that all living beings,
irrespective of their size, shape, and form how spiritually developed or under-developed, are
equal and we should love and respect them.
Jainism existed before Mahavir, and his teachings were based on those of his predecessors. Thus,
unlike Buddha, Mahavir was more of a reformer and propagator of an existing religious order
than the founder of a new faith. He followed the well established creed of his predecessor
Tirthankara Parshvanath. However, Mahavir did reorganize the philosophical tenets of Jainism to
correspond to his times. Lord Mahavir preached five great vows while Lord Parshva preached
four great vows.
In the matters of spiritual advancement, as envisioned by Mahavir, both men and women are on
an equal footing. The lure of renunciation and liberation attracted women as well. Many women
followed Mahavir's path and renounced the world in search of ultimate happiness.
In a few centuries after Mahavir's nirvana, Jain religious order (Sangha) grew more and more
complex. There were schisms on some minor points although they did not affect the original
doctrines as preached by the Tirthankars. Later generations saw the introduction of ritualistic
complexities which almost placed Mahavir and other Tirthankars on the throne of Hindu deities.
Idol Worship
The idols of twenty-four Tirthankaras in the temple are the same because they represent the
quality and virtues of Tirthankaras not the physical body. However, at the bottom of each idol a
unique symbol is placed to differentiate them. Lord Mahavir's idol is recognized by the symbol
of a lion.
Prayer of Jain religion:
Every day Jains bow their heads and say their universal prayer, the Navkar-mantra. All good
work and events start with this prayer of salutation and worship.
Namo Arihantanam: - I bow to the enlightened souls
Namo Siddhanam: - I bow to the liberated souls
Namo Ayariyanam: - I bow to religious leaders
Namo Uvajjayanam: - I bow to religious teachers
Namo Loe Savva Sahunam: - I bow to all monks of the world
Eso Panch Namukkaro: - These five salutations are capable of
Savva Pava Panasano: destroying all the sins and this is
Mangalancha Savvesin the first happiness among all forms
Padhamam Havai Mangalam: of happiness.
In the above prayer, Jains do not ask for any favors or material benefits from their Gods, the
Tirthankaras or from monks and nuns. They do not pray to a specific Tirthankara or monk by
name. By saluting them, Jains receive the inspiration from the five benevolent for the right path
of true happiness and total freedom from the misery of life.
16
Jainism and Buddhism: A Comparative Study (10 min., excellent)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cASZK6Qgp3g&feature=related
JAINISM PART 1 OF 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFDbwMMuWZU&NR=1
Jain, Buddhist and Hindu Creation Myths
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jqijiCu6yU&feature=related
Essence of Jainism (2 min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjRqJudnPFY&feature=related
Jainism PART 1/2 - A.E. #594 (Jain vs atheist; 10 min + 9 min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viz946zJVdo&feature=related
Call in: “. . . all Jains are atheists . . . based on life-style principles of tolerance and non-violence”
Jainism 1/5 (approx. 50 min; detailed, meet the Jains on-site in India, some sub-titles)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPscKFV5yKU&feature=related
(very into business, influence of wealth but beg for food, reincarnation, soul incl. animals, no killing –
even mercy killing to eliminate suffering due to karma)
Hinduism- 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKE7enkhZyo&feature=related
17
SAM HARRIS AND JAINISM
Says Harris in an interview, "... it is simply a fact that a tradition like Buddhism has developed far more
sophisticated methods of introspection than we have in the West." So, let's see - if Harris finds
something commendable about it, it's a "tradition." If not, it's a "religion."
And what about those other "religions"? When Harris isn't condemning religious moderates - those who
believe in science - he's condemning religion for not believing in science. The non-theistic meditations in
Buddhism - contemplating the Unknowable, for example - are presumably an acceptable 'tradition,'
while the non-theistic meditations of Islamic Sufism (contemplating Allah as the Unknowable) are not.
Confused? That's understandable. It takes faith to accept these arguments at face value. That's
especially true when Harris, who argues that religions are the cause for the world's political conflicts,
addresses those who point out that Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot were all non-believers."
http://atheismexposed.tripod.com/sam_harris.htm
Although many things can be said in criticism of religious faith, there is no discounting its power.
Millions among us, even now, are quite willing to die for our unjustified beliefs, and millions more, it
seems, are willing to kill for them.
SAM HARRIS, The End of Faith
There are sections of the Bible that I think are absolutely brilliant and poetically unrivaled, and there are
sections of the Bible which are the sheerest barbarism, yet profess to prescribe a divinely mandated
morality—where do I start? Books like Leviticus and Deuteronomy and Exodus and First and Second
Kings and Second Samuel—half of the kings and prophets of Israel would be taken to The Hague and
prosecuted for crimes against humanity if these events took place in our own time.
SAM HARRIS, debate with Rick Warren, April, 2007
If you think that Christianity is the most direct and undefiled expression of love and compassion the
world has ever seen, you do not know much about the world's other religions. Take the religion of
Jainism as one example. The Jains preach a doctrine of utter non-violence. While the Jains believe many
improbable things about the universe, they do not believe the sorts of things that lit the fires of the
Inquisition. You probably think the Inquisition was a perversion of the "true" spirit of Christianity.
Perhaps it was. The problem, however, is that the teachings of the Bible are so muddled and selfcontradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It
was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas
Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin
Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. You
are, of course, free to interpret the Bible differently--though isn't it amazing that you have succeeded in
discerning the true teachings of Christianity, while the most influential thinkers in the history of your
faith failed?
18
SAM HARRIS, Letter to a Christian Nation
Faith enables many of us to endure life's difficulties with an equanimity that would be scarcely
conceivable in a world lit only by reason.
SAM HARRIS, The End of Faith
http://www.notable-quotes.com/h/harris_sam.html
In his much acclaimed The End of Faith, Sam Harris declares the death of faith, only to celebrate the
birth of spirituality. He wants to convince us of the proposition that "Mysticism is rational…religion is
not" (p. 221). Traditional Judeo-Christian and Islamic conception of God who heeds your prayers is a
mere leap of faith, "an epistemological black hole, draining the light out of our world"(p. 35). Faith in a
personal God is "intellectually defunct and politically ruinous" (p. 221). It is time to grow up, Harris tells
us, and trade faith for spirituality or mysticism, which is "deeply rational, even as it elucidates the limits
of reason" (p. 43). Unlike religion, mysticism is only a "natural propensity of the human mind, and we
need not believe anything on insufficient evidence to actualize it" (p. 221).
But in order to understand Harris's celebration of spiritualism, it is important to understand what he is
pitting it against.
A Rationalist Jihad against Jihad
The End of Faith is a response to religious extremism from a rationalist extremist perspective. Disturbed
by the rise of religious violence around the world, especially the 9-11 attacks on America, Harris has
taken on the traditional theological beliefs about God and afterlife that motivate some to kill innocents.
Brushing aside all political and historical factors that have contributed to religious extremism in the
contemporary world, Harris singles out theological beliefs as the primary and pretty much the sole cause
of religious violence. He indulgently turns a blind eye on the "spiritual" teachings of Hinduism and
Buddhism, both of which have a proven track-record of justifying nationalistic wars and ethnic
cleansings. Instead, he saves all his venom against the Koran, condemning it as if it were a manual of
war. His analysis of religious extremism goes on these lines:
Question: Why do Islamic terrorists do what they do? Why has Osama bin Laden chosen the path of
violence against the West, especially against America?
Answer: Because men like bin Laden actually believe in the literal truth of the Koran. And because the
literal truth of Koran is "intrinsically" violent and intolerant, they have no choice but to commit acts of
violence.
In short, it is the theology stupid!
But let us first look at what Harris means by spirituality.
19
Harris offers a standard characterization of the mystical/spiritual experience. He describes it as tuning,
or focusing, the mind through meditation, fasting, chanting, sensory deprivation or using psychotropic
drugs, that enables it to overcome, or dissolve, the sense of the self that stands separate from the
objects of its consciousness. The goal of spiritual experience is to "experience the world perfectly shorn
of self… to lose the subject/object perception …to continue to experience the world, but without the
felling that there is a knower standing apart form the known. Thoughts may arise, but the feeling that
one is a thinker of these thoughts vanish." (p. 212-213) The goal is to dissolve the ego-bound,
individuated subject by ending its separation from the object itself. Harris is describing the classic all-isone and one-is-all experience that mystics and spiritual adepts tend to report.
For Hindus, this attempt to divest the ego by consciously realizing its identity with the ground of the
entire macrocosm -- what the Hindus call the Brahman -- is the very essence of what the Vedas and
Upanishads teach: "Thou art That," "all this Brahman" and the atman (self) in you is the Brahman.
Brahman, the Vedas teach, is the sole, truly existing, non-material, eternal reality which is beyond space,
time and causation. Once you experience the sense of being beyond space, time and causation through
yoga, breath control and meditation, you will realize the truth of the Vedas, namely, the self in you
(atman) is identical with Brahman, your consciousness encompasses the entire macrocosm, and that
you are, in fact, God. Once you reach this state of mind, you are not held back by fears or tempted by
desires: the here and now of the material world become illusionary and lose their grip on one's mind.
Thus, the achievement of the sense of one-ness with the universe is a central commandment of Hindu
and Buddhist teachings. While Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions have their mystics, only the Eastern
traditions provide a doctrine that can make sense of the mystical experience of unity or one-ness.
I would have no argument with Harris if he were only recommending spiritualism as means for mindful
relaxation, and the delight and even ecstasy that sometimes accompany the sensation of losing one's
sense of space, time and self. Indeed "wise mystics" have long realized that the mystical experience
does not confer existential status on its content. Rather than construct metaphysical systems, wise
mystics have learned to simply enjoy and value the experience itself.[1] There is enough data to believe
that meditation, if done consistently and over many years, does bring about a deep state of relaxation,
with dramatically lowered heart rate and brain activity. If the goal is to reduce stress, even the most
militant rationalist will have to admit that meditation does provide some benefits. (It does not follow,
however, that all the claims of yoga and pranayam, must be accepted. There is very little rigorous
controlled testing of the more extravagant claims of those who believe in the power of the mind to cure
everything from blindness to cancers).
Unfortunately, Harris is not one of the wise mystics. He loads spiritual practices with metaphysical
baggage, all the while claiming to stand up for reason and evidence. By the end of the book, I could not
help thinking of him as a Trojan horse for the New Age. While Harris tries to distance himself from the
more extravagant Whole Life Expo type fads (crystals, colonic irrigation and the like), he ends up
endorsing fundamental New Age assumptions as rational alternatives to traditional religiosity. Here are
three of his assumptions, in an increasing order of obfuscation:
To begin with, there is this nugget, tucked away in the end notes, which celebrates the prospect of
revival of occult: " Indeed, the future looks like the past… We may live to see the technological
perfection of all the visionary strands of traditional mysticism: shamanism, Gnosticism, Kabbalah,
Hermetism and its magical Renaissance spawn (Hermeticism) and all the other Byzantine paths whereby
man has sought the Other in every guise of its conception. But all these approaches to spirituality are
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born of a longing for esoteric knowledge and a desire to excavate …the mind --in dreams, in trance, in
psychedelic swoon -- in search for the sacred" (end note 23, p. 290).
It is hard to believe that the author of this stuff is the most celebrated rationalist of our troubled times.
Secondly, Harris rejects a naturalistic understanding of nature and the human mind. He sets
consciousness free from such mortal things as brains and bodies, allowing the possibility of panpsychism, the doctrine of immanence of awareness or consciousness throughout the universe. For
someone studying to be a neuroscientist, Harris holds rather unconventional views. He scoffs at the
physicalism of the mainstream of scientists who believe that our mental and spiritual lives are wholly
dependent upon the workings of the brain, treating it as an irrational "article of faith" which methods of
science can neither prove nor disprove. He gives full credence to reports of near death experience and
leaves open the possibility that disembodied soul can survive the death of the body, claiming that we
don't know what happens after death. After denying that consciousness is a product of our physiology,
he presents it as a fundamental ingredient of nature, "a far more rudimentary phenomenon than living
creatures and their brains" (p. 209). This is nothing but the good old mind-matter holism, the first
principle of all New Age beliefs.
Again, the problem is not that Harris holds these beliefs. The problem is that Harris wants to convince us
that it is the very height of rationality to hold these beliefs.
Thirdly, and I examine this more closely in the next section, Harris believes that spiritual experiences are
knowledge experiences, or as he puts it, altered mental states induced by spiritual practices can
"uncover genuine facts about the world" (p. 40). Investigation of our own subjectivity, Harris believes, is
a "proper and essential sphere of investigation into the nature of the universe, as some facts will be
discovered only in consciousness." (p. 209). Again, as before, he tries to distance himself from the more
extravagant metaphysical schemes. But he buys into the basic idea that what mystics see in their minds
actually has an ontological referent in the world outside their minds. Or to put it in the vocabulary he
prefers, when the gap between the subject and object vanishes, "pure" awareness of one's subjectivity
can tell us something about the objective reality.
Here, Sam Harris is not all that far apart from Mahesh Yogi, Deepak Chopra and others who claim that
spiritual practitioners have the most objective view of the world because they can see it "directly," just
the way it is, completely "shorn of the self," and the many biases and dogmas that "I-ness" brings.
How Rational is Mysticism?
In loading spirituality with ontological baggage, Harris is making, let us say, a leap of faith. He is falling in
the noetic, or intellectualist, trap that William James identified in The Varieties of Religious Experience
when he noticed how mystical experience has the quality of a profound knowing: "although similar to
the states of feeling, mystical states seem to those who experience them to be also states of knowledge.
They are illuminations, revelations, full of significance and importance… and as a rule, they carry with
them a curious sense of authority" (emphasis added).[2]
At their peak, meditative experiences invariably bring about a feeling of having touched something far
deeper and far more real than what is normally experienced by the five senses in our ordinary lives. And
this conviction itself becomes a source of validation of the of the objective reality of what they have
seen: what they see in their minds, they assume, must exist outside. Vision gets fixed into metaphysical
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systems built on super-sensory entities and processes. The experience of losing the boundaries of one's
ego, the feeling of having transcended time and space, gives the feeling of becoming one with the
universe, of "seeing" the entire macrocosm in one's own mind. It is not a coincidence that the teaching
of Vedanta -- "Thou art That" -- has been interpreted by so many as implying that I (the enlightened one)
am Brahman, that I am the universe, that my mind is the mind of the entire cosmos and by controlling
my mind, I can control the cosmos. Contrary to Harris's attempt to rationalize it, the mind-matter unity
has been the metaphysics underlying the search for paranormal powers and extra-sensory perceptions.
It is not a coincidence that rational mystics like Harris who subscribe to the thesis of mind being an
element of matter end up making excuses for paranormal phenomena such as ESP, near death
experiences (see p. 41).
This noetic propensity to make existence claims with absolute certainty is not a metaphysical excess or a
delusion: It is part and parcel of the mystical experience. Neurosciences are revealing the biological
grounds for why mystical experiences feel as if they are actually uncovering genuine facts about the
world. Andrew Newberg and Eugene D'Aquili, in their well-known Why God will Not Go Away, offer a
clue. They believe that the ontological fallacy stems from the process of reification -- "the ability of the
brain to convert a concept into a concrete thing, or more succinctly, to bestow upon something the
quality of being real or true. Reification refers to the power of the mind to grant meaning and substance
to its own perceptions." On this account, meditative practices slow down the transmission of neural
information to the posterior superior parietal lobes of the brain, which controls spatial orientation,
resulting in the sensation of pure awareness which is incapable of drawing boundaries between the
limited personal self and the external material world. This sensation gets reified into the image of
"reality of as a formless unified whole, with no limits, no substance, no beginning and no end."[3]
What neurosciences seem to be telling us is that while the neurological processes that give rise to
mystical experiences are real, they prove nothing about the ultimate nature of reality or God. Just
because we can study the neuro-physiology of mysticism in a scientific manner, does not make the
experience scientific or rational in any way. (We can study schizophrenia in a scientific manner, but that
does not mean that schizophrenics are rational). Harris has a tendency to confuse the fact that
spirituality can be taught and studied in a rational manner, with the rationality of the beliefs about the
world that such experiences engender.
Harris, a doctoral student in neuroscience, hardly needs a primer on these matters. He realizes, of
course, that reification works on all experiences, sensory as well as non-sensory. The sights and sounds
we hear, Harris tells us, are not raw data from the world outside, but are processed by the higher
centers of the brain. The brain is not a mirror to the world outside, but more like a radio or TV receiver
that is "tuned to deliver a particular vision of the world" (p. 42). Harris wants us to believe that
mysticism is only a matter of tuning your brain differently so that it receives signal from an altered,
boundary-less relationship between you and the world (p. 41-42). The information that this altered state
of mind is "tuned" to receive is nevertheless rational because it "uncover[s] genuine facts about the
world" (p.40) and discloses closer interconnections in the universe than are apparent to us in our
ordinary sates of consciousness. (One cannot help wondering, why faith in God is not just such a method
of "tuning the brain differently" for those who believe in the personal God of the Bible and the Koran?
Neurologically speaking, why is God a "delusion," if mysticism is "astute"?)
But Harris can defend the rationality of mysticism only by completely contradicting himself, by
forgetting the criteria of rationality which he applies so energetically when he is eviscerating faith in
God. If he were to apply these same criteria to spirituality as rigorously as he applies them to faith, he
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will have no choice but to admit that mysticism is as much of an "imposter" as faith. He will have to
admit that mysticism, like faith, is an "act of knowledge that has a low grade of evidence" (p. 65). He will
have to admit that mystics, like believers in a personal God, "seize upon extraordinary phenomena" and
extraordinary experiences, as confirmation of the beliefs which have gripped their imagination and filled
them with a sense of awe (pp. 65-66). Mysticism fares no better, and no worse, than "mere" faith, when
judged against the demands of evidence. Here is why:
What do people mean, Harris asks, when they say that they believe a certain proposition about the
world? What they mean is that the proposition "faithfully represents some state of the world (51)."
When someone says he believes that God exists, he means that God's existence is the cause of his belief.
Likewise, when someone says he believes in consciousness suffusing the whole world, he means that
the consciousness suffusing the world is the cause of his belief.
The obvious next question is: how do we know if our beliefs, however real they feel to us, are in fact
faithfully representing the world? For beliefs to faithfully represent some state of the world, they must
have some kind of a hook into the world: there must be "some mechanism that guarantees that the
regularities in our nervous system consistently mirror regularities in the environment…something in our
experience must provide a causal link to the actual state of the world (p. 58, emphasis added).
Harris rejects God because none of the traditional justifications for belief in God -- spiritual experiences,
the authority of the Bible and/or the church— have an adequate hook into reality: none of them can
assure that God exists, or that "belief in god is a consequence of the way the world is" (63). God has to
go, because the experience of God cannot be shown to be caused by anything that actually exists.
But by this standard, spirituality is no less irrational, for it is no less lacking in a hook into the reality.
Harris has to tell us what "casual links" does spiritual experience offer into "the actual state of the
world"? What assurance there is that the "deeper connections" mystics see in their mind, actually
"mirror the regularities in the environment"? All we have is the mystic's word that he has been able to
vanquish the constraints of his "self," and has come to see world "directly" by becoming one with it.
There is no independently testable reason for non-mystics -- for the vast majority of people who find
their non-altered states of consciousness to be perfectly adequate and satisfying -- to accept the
mystics' word as evidence. I don't find the usual analogies with consensus in natural sciences very
persuasive at all (p. 220). In science (Thomas Kuhn notwithstanding) anyone with functioning senses,
adequate training and right apparatus can see the same star, the same DNA molecule, the same
electron. But not everyone with adequate training in meditation techniques, and the right atmosphere,
sees the same mystical reality: some see God, some see nothing at all and some, without any meditation
at all, see what the mystics see. I believe that William James had it right:
mystical states… are absolutely authoritative over the individuals to whom they come. But mystics have
no right to claim that we ought to accept the deliverance of their peculiar experiences…. Non-mystics
are under no obligation to acknowledge in mystical states a superior authority (p. 460, 645).
In sum, Sam Harris is right in that "mysticism is a natural propensity of the human mind." But he is dead
wrong when he claims that mysticism does not demand that we "believe anything on insufficient
evidence to actualize it" (p. 221).
http://www.sacw.net/free/Trading%20Faith%20for%20Spirituality_%20The%20Mystifications%20of%20
Sam%20Harris.html
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Jain Center of America, New York
http://www.nyjaincenter.org/
“Unity in Diversity”
Jain World photos
http://www.jainworld.com/photos/index.asp
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