RLG100Y1 Study Guide - Final Guide: Pudgala, Digambara, Jiva
Document Summary
Jainism confronts us with a simple yet extraordinary message. The path to happiness, truth, and self realization is the path f restraint. Happiness is the product not of doing but of not doing, not of embracing the world but of disengaging from it. It is this emphasis on restraint that gives jainism its foothold with regard to its ascetic character. However, the jaina tradition cannot be contained within such narrow bounds. For one thing, the jaina community is well known for its business acumen, worldly success, and strong social identity, in other words, for its effective dynamic engagement with the world. Outsiders often perceive a paradoxi(cid:272)al disju(cid:374)(cid:272)tio(cid:374) (cid:271)et(cid:449)ee(cid:374) jai(cid:374)as" this-worldly achievement and their other-worldly ethos. But this seeming paradox reflects the principle that the path of renunciation is a path of transformative power. The power of renunciation lies not in opposing worldly power but in transcending and subsuming it.
