Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/222

 206 The Jaina Phzlosophy [CH. admitting him at all? You may rather say that the world came into being out of its own nature. It is preposterous to suppose that one God without the help of any instruments or other accessories of any kind, could create this world. This is against all experience. Admitting for the sake of argument that such a God exists, you could never justify the adjectives with which you wish to qualify him. Thus you say that he is eternal. But since he has no body, he must be of the nature of intelligence and will. But this nature must have changed in diverse forms for the pro- duction of diverse kinds of worldly things, which are of so varied a nature. If there were no change in his knowledge and will, then there could not have been diverse kinds of creation and de- struction. Destruction and creation cannot be the result of one unchangeable will and knowledge. Moreover it is the character of knowledge to change, if the word is used in the sense in which knowledge is applied to human beings, and surely we are not aware of any other kind of knowledge. You say that God is omniscient, but it is difficult to suppose how he can have any knowledge at all, for as he has no organs he cannot have any perception, and since he cannot have any perception he cannot have any inference either. If it is said that without the supposi- tion of a God the variety of the world would be inexplicable, this also is not true, for this implication would only be justified if there were no other hypothesis left. But there are other supposi- tions also. Even without an omniscient God you could explain all things merely by the doctrine of moral order or the law of karma. I f there were one God, there could be a society of Gods too. You say that if there were many Gods, then there would be quarrels and differences of opinion. This is like the story of a miser who for fear of incurring expenses left all his sons and wife and retired into the forest. When even ants and bees can co-operate together and act harmoniously, the supposition that if there were many Gods they would have fallen out, would indicate that in spite of all the virtues that you ascribe to God you think his nature to be quite unreliable, if not vicious. Thus in which- ever way one tries to justify the existence of God he finds that it is absolutely a hopeless task. The best way then is to dispense with the supposition altogether l. I See ..S'arftlarsallasamuccaya, GU'.1aratna on Jainism, pp. I 15-124'