Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Página 729

THE SUPREME BEING
689
the latter, and enjoins very much the same means of attain-
ing everlasting felicity, by which they understand reunion
with the Godhead.
The Religious System of the
Jains.
The Jains acknowledge one Supreme Being, to whom
they give the names of Jaineswara, Paramatma, Parapara-
vastu, and several others expressing the infinity of his
nature.
Supreme Being alone that
all the prayers and
Jains are offered
and it is to him
that all the marks of respect which they pay to their holy
personages, known as Saloka-purushas, and to other sacred
objects represented under a human form, are really ad-
dressed
for these, on attaining moksha (supreme blessed-
ness) after death, have become united with and incorporated
into the Supreme Being.
The Supreme Being is, they say, one and indivisible,
a spirit without corporal parts or limitations.
His four
principal attributes are
It is to this
sacrifices of the true
;
;
:
1.
2.
Ananta-gnanam, infinite wisdom.
Ananta-darsanam, infinite intuition, omniscience, and
omnipresence.
3. Ananta-viryam, omnipotence.
Ananta-sukham,
infinite blessedness.
entirely absorbed in the contemplation
of his infinite perfections, and in the uninterrupted enjoy-
ment of the happiness which he finds in his own essence.
He has nothing in common with the things of this world,
and does not interfere at all in the government of this vast
universe.
Virtue and vice, good and evil, are indifferent
to him.
Virtue being essentially right, those who practise it in
this world will find their reward in another life, either by
a blessed reincarnation, or by immediate admittance to the
delights of Swarga.
Vice being essentially bad and wrong,
those who give way to it will be punished in another world
by an unhappy reincarnation. The worst offenders will go
straight to Naraka after death, there to expiate their crimes.
But in no case does God intervene in the distribution of
4.
This noble being
is