21 October, 2016

লিখতে পারলাম কি ?


ফেসবুকে যারা যুদ্ধ রব তোলে তাঁদের মধ্যে অনেকই

কোনদিন সীমান্ত দেখে নি হয়তো
বোঝে নি
কত সীমন্তের সিঁদুর মুছে
কত ওড়নার বিনিময়ে
সীমান্ত হয় আঁকা !

এরা নেতাদের কথা শুনে নাচে
এরা বোঝে না
সাধু - মহারাজ - ইমাম - মোল্লা এবং প্রিস্ট আছে যত
এবং ওদের ভরসায় বেঁচে থাকা নেতা গুলো

কোন দাঙ্গায় মরে না
কোন যুদ্ধে মরে না
ওরা নিজের স্বার্থে
সাধারণ মানুষের রক্ত পান করে !

দুর্ভাগ্য এ পৃথ্বীর
সাধারণ মানুষ এদের নেতা বানিয়ে
এদের পায়ের তলায় পিষ্ট হয়
গণতন্ত্রের নামে !

জানি আমি
ব্যতিক্রম আছে কিছু।।

সেই ভরসা নিয়ে
কিছু কথা লিখে যাই
হয়তো বা নিজেই নিজেকে
হত্যা করে যাই
প্রতি রাতে
নতুন ভোর দেখব
এ স্বপ্ন দেখে
বার বার কিছু কথা লিখে যাই ।

লিখতে পারলাম কি ?

Truth



Truth

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Truth (disambiguation).

Time Saving Truth from Falsehood and Envy, François Lemoyne, 1737

Truth is most often used to mean being in accord with fact or reality,[1] or fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal.[1]
The commonly understood opposite of truth is falsehood, which, correspondingly, can also take on a logical, factual, or ethical meaning. The concept of truth is discussed and debated in several contexts, including philosophy and religion. Many human activities depend upon the concept, where its nature as a concept is assumed rather than being a subject of discussion; these include most (but not all) of the sciences, law, and everyday life.
Various theories and views of truth continue to be debated among scholars, philosophers, and theologians.[2] Language and words are a means by which humans convey information to one another and the method used to determine what is a "truth" is termed a criterion of truth. There are differing claims on such questions as what constitutes truth: what things are truthbearers capable of being true or false; how to define and identify truth; the roles that faith-based and empirically based knowledge play; and whether truth is subjective or objective, relative or absolute.

Definition and etymology

The English word truth is derived from Old English tríewþ, tréowþ, trýwþ, Middle English trewþe, cognate to Old High German triuwida, Old Norse tryggð. Like troth, it is a -th nominalisation of the adjective true (Old English tréowe).
The English word true is from Old English (West Saxon) (ge)tríewe, tréowe, cognate to Old Saxon (gi)trûui, Old High German (ga)triuwu (Modern German treu "faithful"), Old Norse tryggr, Gothic triggws,[3] all from a Proto-Germanic *trewwj- "having good faith", perhaps ultimately from PIE *dru- "tree", on the notion of "steadfast as an oak" (e.g., Sanskrit "dru" tree).[4] Old Norse trú, "faith, word of honour; religious faith, belief"[5] (archaic English troth "loyalty, honesty, good faith", compare Ásatrú).
Thus, 'truth' involves both the quality of "faithfulness, fidelity, loyalty, sincerity, veracity",[6] and that of "agreement with fact or reality", in Anglo-Saxon expressed by sōþ (Modern English sooth).
All Germanic languages besides English have introduced a terminological distinction between truth "fidelity" and truth "factuality". To express "factuality", North Germanic opted for nouns derived from sanna "to assert, affirm", while continental West Germanic (German and Dutch) opted for continuations of wâra "faith, trust, pact" (cognate to Slavic věra "(religious) faith", but influenced by Latin verus). Romance languages use terms following the Latin veritas, while the Greek aletheia, Russian pravda and South Slavic istina have separate etymological origins.

Major theories

The question of what is a proper basis for deciding how words, symbols, ideas and beliefs may properly be considered true, whether by a single person or an entire society, is dealt with by the five most prevalent substantive theories listed below. Each presents perspectives that are widely shared by published scholars.[7][8][9]
However, the substantive theories are not universally accepted. More recently developed "deflationary" or "minimalist" theories of truth have emerged as competitors to the older substantive theories. Minimalist reasoning centres around the notion that the application of a term like true to a statement does not assert anything significant about it, for instance, anything about its nature. Minimalist reasoning realises truth as a label utilised in general discourse to express agreement, to stress claims, or to form general assumptions.[7][10][11]

Substantive theories

Correspondence theory

Correspondence theories emphasise that true beliefs and true statements correspond to the actual state of affairs.[12] This type of theory stresses a relationship between thoughts or statements on one hand, and things or objects on the other. It is a traditional model tracing its origins to ancient Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.[13] This class of theories holds that the truth or the falsity of a representation is determined in principle entirely by how it relates to "things", by whether it accurately describes those "things." An example of correspondence theory is the statement by the thirteenth century philosopher/theologian Thomas Aquinas: Veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus ("Truth is the equation [or adequation] of things and intellect"), a statement which Aquinas attributed to the ninth century neoplatonist Isaac Israeli.[14][15][16] Aquinas also restated the theory as: "A judgment is said to be true when it conforms to the external reality".[17]
Correspondence theory centres heavily around the assumption that truth is a matter of accurately copying what is known as "objective reality" and then representing it in thoughts, words and other symbols.[18] Many modern theorists have stated that this ideal cannot be achieved without analysing additional factors.[7][19] For example, language plays a role in that all languages have words to represent concepts that are virtually undefined in other languages. The German word Zeitgeist is one such example: one who speaks or understands the language may "know" what it means, but any translation of the word apparently fails to accurately capture its full meaning (this is a problem with many abstract words, especially those derived in agglutinative languages). Thus, some words add an additional parameter to the construction of an accurate truth predicate. Among the philosophers who grappled with this problem is Alfred Tarski, whose semantic theory is summarized further below in this article.[20]
Proponents of several of the theories below have gone further to assert that there are yet other issues necessary to the analysis, such as interpersonal power struggles, community interactions, personal biases and other factors involved in deciding what is seen as truth.

Coherence theory


For coherence theories in general, truth requires a proper fit of elements within a whole system. Very often, though, coherence is taken to imply something more than simple logical consistency; often there is a demand that the propositions in a coherent system lend mutual inferential support to each other. So, for example, the completeness and comprehensiveness of the underlying set of concepts is a critical factor in judging the validity and usefulness of a coherent system.[21] A pervasive tenet of coherence theories is the idea that truth is primarily a property of whole systems of propositions, and can be ascribed to individual propositions only according to their coherence with the whole. Among the assortment of perspectives commonly regarded as coherence theory, theorists differ on the question of whether coherence entails many possible true systems of thought or only a single absolute system.
Some variants of coherence theory are claimed to describe the essential and intrinsic properties of formal systems in logic and mathematics.[22] However, formal reasoners are content to contemplate axiomatically independent and sometimes mutually contradictory systems side by side, for example, the various alternative geometries. On the whole, coherence theories have been rejected for lacking justification in their application to other areas of truth, especially with respect to assertions about the natural world, empirical data in general, assertions about practical matters of psychology and society, especially when used without support from the other major theories of truth.[23]
Coherence theories distinguish the thought of rationalist philosophers, particularly of Spinoza, Leibniz, and G.W.F. Hegel, along with the British philosopher F.H. Bradley.[24] They have found a resurgence also among several proponents of logical positivism, notably Otto Neurath and Carl Hempel.

Constructivist theory

Social constructivism holds that truth is constructed by social processes, is historically and culturally specific, and that it is in part shaped through the power struggles within a community. Constructivism views all of our knowledge as "constructed," because it does not reflect any external "transcendent" realities (as a pure correspondence theory might hold). Rather, perceptions of truth are viewed as contingent on convention, human perception, and social experience. It is believed by constructivists that representations of physical and biological reality, including race, sexuality, and gender, are socially constructed.
Giambattista Vico was among the first to claim that history and culture were man-made. Vico's epistemological orientation gathers the most diverse rays and unfolds in one axiom – verum ipsum factum – "truth itself is constructed". Hegel and Marx were among the other early proponents of the premise that truth is, or can be, socially constructed. Marx, like many critical theorists who followed, did not reject the existence of objective truth but rather distinguished between true knowledge and knowledge that has been distorted through power or ideology. For Marx, scientific and true knowledge is "in accordance with the dialectical understanding of history" and ideological knowledge is "an epiphenomenal expression of the relation of material forces in a given economic arrangement".[25]

Consensus theory

Consensus theory holds that truth is whatever is agreed upon, or in some versions, might come to be agreed upon, by some specified group. Such a group might include all human beings, or a subset thereof consisting of more than one person.
Among the current advocates of consensus theory as a useful accounting of the concept of "truth" is the philosopher Jürgen Habermas.[26] Habermas maintains that truth is what would be agreed upon in an ideal speech situation.[27] Among the current strong critics of consensus theory is the philosopher Nicholas Rescher.[28]

Pragmatic theory

The three most influential forms of the pragmatic theory of truth were introduced around the turn of the 20th century by Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. Although there are wide differences in viewpoint among these and other proponents of pragmatic theory, they hold in common that truth is verified and confirmed by the results of putting one's concepts into practice.[29]
Peirce defines truth as follows: "Truth is that concordance of an abstract statement with the ideal limit towards which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific belief, which concordance the abstract statement may possess by virtue of the confession of its inaccuracy and one-sidedness, and this confession is an essential ingredient of truth."[30] This statement stresses Peirce's view that ideas of approximation, incompleteness, and partiality, what he describes elsewhere as fallibilism and "reference to the future", are essential to a proper conception of truth. Although Peirce uses words like concordance and correspondence to describe one aspect of the pragmatic sign relation, he is also quite explicit in saying that definitions of truth based on mere correspondence are no more than nominal definitions, which he accords a lower status than real definitions.
William James's version of pragmatic theory, while complex, is often summarized by his statement that "the 'true' is only the expedient in our way of thinking, just as the 'right' is only the expedient in our way of behaving."[31] By this, James meant that truth is a quality, the value of which is confirmed by its effectiveness when applying concepts to practice (thus, "pragmatic").
John Dewey, less broadly than James but more broadly than Peirce, held that inquiry, whether scientific, technical, sociological, philosophical or cultural, is self-corrective over time if openly submitted for testing by a community of inquirers in order to clarify, justify, refine and/or refute proposed truths.[32]
Though not widely known, a new variation of the pragmatic theory was defined and wielded successfully from the 20th century forward. Defined and named by William Ernest Hocking, this variation is known as "negative pragmatism". Essentially, what works may or may not be true, but what fails cannot be true because the truth always works.[33] Richard Feynman also ascribed to it: "We never are definitely right, we can only be sure we are wrong."[34] This approach incorporates many of the ideas from Peirce, James, and Dewey. For Peirce, the idea of "... endless investigation would tend to bring about scientific belief ..." fits negative pragmatism in that a negative pragmatist would never stop testing. As Feynman noted, an idea or theory "... could never be proved right, because tomorrow's experiment might succeed in proving wrong what you thought was right."[34] Similarly, James and Dewey's ideas also ascribe truth to repeated testing which is "self-corrective" over time.
Pragmatism and negative pragmatism are also closely aligned with the coherence theory of truth in that any testing should not be isolated but rather incorporate knowledge from all human endeavors and experience. The universe is a whole and integrated system, and testing should acknowledge and account for its diversity. As Feynman said, "... if it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong."[35]

Minimalist (deflationary) theories

Modern developments in the field of philosophy, starting with the relatively modern notion that a theory being old does not necessarily imply that it is completely flawless, have resulted in the rise of a new thesis: that the term truth does not denote a real property of sentences or propositions. This thesis is in part a response to the common use of truth predicates (e.g., that some particular thing "...is true") which was particularly prevalent in philosophical discourse on truth in the first half of the 20th century. From this point of view, to assert that "'2 + 2 = 4' is true" is logically equivalent to asserting that "2 + 2 = 4", and the phrase "is true" is completely dispensable in this and every other context. In common parlance, truth predicates are not commonly heard, and it would be interpreted as an unusual occurrence were someone to utilise a truth predicate in an everyday conversation when asserting that something is true. Newer perspectives that take this discrepancy into account and work with sentence structures that are actually employed in common discourse can be broadly described:
  • as deflationary theories of truth, since they attempt to deflate the presumed importance of the words "true" or truth,
  • as disquotational theories, to draw attention to the disappearance of the quotation marks in cases like the above example, or
  • as minimalist theories of truth.[7][36]
Whichever term is used, deflationary theories can be said to hold in common that "[t]he predicate 'true' is an expressive convenience, not the name of a property requiring deep analysis."[7] Once we have identified the truth predicate's formal features and utility, deflationists argue, we have said all there is to be said about truth. Among the theoretical concerns of these views is to explain away those special cases where it does appear that the concept of truth has peculiar and interesting properties. (See, e.g., Semantic paradoxes, and below.)
In addition to highlighting such formal aspects of the predicate "is true", some deflationists point out that the concept enables us to express things that might otherwise require infinitely long sentences. For example, one cannot express confidence in Michael's accuracy by asserting the endless sentence:
Michael says, 'snow is white' and snow is white, or he says 'roses are red' and roses are red or he says ... etc.
This assertion can also be succinctly expressed by saying: What Michael says is true.[37]

Performative theory of truth

Attributed to P. F. Strawson is the performative theory of truth which holds that to say "'Snow is white' is true" is to perform the speech act of signaling one's agreement with the claim that snow is white (much like nodding one's head in agreement). The idea that some statements are more actions than communicative statements is not as odd as it may seem. Consider, for example, that when the bride says "I do" at the appropriate time in a wedding, she is performing the act of taking this man to be her lawful wedded husband. She is not describing herself as taking this man, but actually doing so (perhaps the most thorough analysis of such "illocutionary acts" is J. L. Austin, "How to Do Things With Words"[38]).
Strawson holds that a similar analysis is applicable to all speech acts, not just illocutionary ones: "To say a statement is true is not to make a statement about a statement, but rather to perform the act of agreeing with, accepting, or endorsing a statement. When one says 'It's true that it's raining,' one asserts no more than 'It's raining.' The function of [the statement] 'It's true that...' is to agree with, accept, or endorse the statement that 'it's raining.'"[39]

Redundancy and related theories

According to the redundancy theory of truth, asserting that a statement is true is completely equivalent to asserting the statement itself. For example, making the assertion that " 'Snow is white' is true" is equivalent to asserting "Snow is white". Redundancy theorists infer from this premise that truth is a redundant concept; that is, it is merely a word that is traditionally used in conversation or writing, generally for emphasis, but not a word that actually equates to anything in reality. This theory is commonly attributed to Frank P. Ramsey, who held that the use of words like fact and truth was nothing but a roundabout way of asserting a proposition, and that treating these words as separate problems in isolation from judgment was merely a "linguistic muddle".[7][40][41]
A variant of redundancy theory is the disquotational theory which uses a modified form of Tarski's schema: To say that '"P" is true' is to say that P. A version of this theory was defended by C. J. F. Williams in his book What is Truth?. Yet another version of deflationism is the prosentential theory of truth, first developed by Dorothy Grover, Joseph Camp, and Nuel Belnap as an elaboration of Ramsey's claims. They argue that sentences like "That's true", when said in response to "It's raining", are prosentences, expressions that merely repeat the content of other expressions. In the same way that it means the same as my dog in the sentence My dog was hungry, so I fed it, That's true is supposed to mean the same as It's raining — if you say the latter and I then say the former. These variations do not necessarily follow Ramsey in asserting that truth is not a property, but rather can be understood to say that, for instance, the assertion "P" may well involve a substantial truth, and the theorists in this case are minimizing only the redundancy or prosentence involved in the statement such as "that's true."[7]
Deflationary principles do not apply to representations that are not analogous to sentences, and also do not apply to many other things that are commonly judged to be true or otherwise. Consider the analogy between the sentence "Snow is white" and the character named Snow White, both of which can be true in some sense. To a minimalist, saying "Snow is white is true" is the same as saying "Snow is white," but to say "Snow White is true" is not the same as saying "Snow White."

Pluralist theories

Several of the major theories of truth hold that there is a particular property the having of which makes a belief or proposition true. Pluralist theories of truth assert that there may be more than one property that makes propositions true: ethical propositions might be true by virtue of coherence. Propositions about the physical world might be true by corresponding to the objects and properties they are about.
Some of the pragmatic theories, such as those by Charles Peirce and William James, included aspects of correspondence, coherence and constructivist theories.[30][31] Crispin Wright argued in his 1992 book Truth and Objectivity that any predicate which satisfied certain platitudes about truth qualified as a truth predicate. In some discourses, Wright argued, the role of the truth predicate might be played by the notion of superassertibility.[42] Michael Lynch, in a 2009 book Truth as One and Many, argued that we should see truth as a functional property capable of being multiply manifested in distinct properties like correspondence or coherence.[43]

Most believed theories

According to a survey of professional philosophers and others on their philosophical views which was carried out in November 2009 (taken by 3226 respondents, including 1803 philosophy faculty members and/or PhDs and 829 philosophy graduate students) 44.9% of respondents accept or lean towards correspondence theories, 20.7% accept or lean towards deflationary theories and 13.8% epistemic theories.[44]

Formal theories

Truth in logic

Logic is concerned with the patterns in reason that can help tell us if a proposition is true or not. However, logic does not deal with truth in the absolute sense, as for instance a metaphysician does. Logicians use formal languages to express the truths which they are concerned with, and as such there is only truth under some interpretation or truth within some logical system.
A logical truth (also called an analytic truth or a necessary truth) is a statement which is true in all possible worlds[45] or under all possible interpretations, as contrasted to a fact (also called a synthetic claim or a contingency) which is only true in this world as it has historically unfolded. A proposition such as "If p and q, then p" is considered to be a logical truth because of the meaning of the symbols and words in it and not because of any fact of any particular world. They are such that they could not be untrue.

Truth in mathematics

There are two main approaches to truth in mathematics. They are the model theory of truth and the proof theory of truth.[46]
Historically, with the nineteenth century development of Boolean algebra mathematical models of logic began to treat "truth", also represented as "T" or "1", as an arbitrary constant. "Falsity" is also an arbitrary constant, which can be represented as "F" or "0". In propositional logic, these symbols can be manipulated according to a set of axioms and rules of inference, often given in the form of truth tables.
In addition, from at least the time of Hilbert's program at the turn of the twentieth century to the proof of Gödel's incompleteness theorems and the development of the Church-Turing thesis in the early part of that century, true statements in mathematics were generally assumed to be those statements that are provable in a formal axiomatic system.[47]
The works of Kurt Gödel, Alan Turing, and others shook this assumption, with the development of statements that are true but cannot be proven within the system.[48] Two examples of the latter can be found in Hilbert's problems. Work on Hilbert's 10th problem led in the late twentieth century to the construction of specific Diophantine equations for which it is undecidable whether they have a solution,[49] or even if they do, whether they have a finite or infinite number of solutions. More fundamentally, Hilbert's first problem was on the continuum hypothesis.[50] Gödel and Paul Cohen showed that this hypothesis cannot be proved or disproved using the standard axioms of set theory.[51] In the view of some, then, it is equally reasonable to take either the continuum hypothesis or its negation as a new axiom.

Semantic theory of truth

The semantic theory of truth has as its general case for a given language:
'P' is true if and only if P
where 'P' refers to the sentence (the sentence's name), and P is just the sentence itself.
Logician and philosopher Alfred Tarski developed the theory for formal languages (such as formal logic). Here he restricted it in this way: no language could contain its own truth predicate, that is, the expression is true could only apply to sentences in some other language. The latter he called an object language, the language being talked about. (It may, in turn, have a truth predicate that can be applied to sentences in still another language.) The reason for his restriction was that languages that contain their own truth predicate will contain paradoxical sentences such as, "This sentence is not true". As a result Tarski held that the semantic theory could not be applied to any natural language, such as English, because they contain their own truth predicates. Donald Davidson used it as the foundation of his truth-conditional semantics and linked it to radical interpretation in a form of coherentism.
Bertrand Russell is credited with noticing the existence of such paradoxes even in the best symbolic formations of mathematics in his day, in particular the paradox that came to be named after him, Russell's paradox. Russell and Whitehead attempted to solve these problems in Principia Mathematica by putting statements into a hierarchy of types, wherein a statement cannot refer to itself, but only to statements lower in the hierarchy. This in turn led to new orders of difficulty regarding the precise natures of types and the structures of conceptually possible type systems that have yet to be resolved to this day.

Kripke's theory of truth

Saul Kripke contends that a natural language can in fact contain its own truth predicate without giving rise to contradiction. He showed how to construct one as follows:
  • Begin with a subset of sentences of a natural language that contains no occurrences of the expression "is true" (or "is false"). So The barn is big is included in the subset, but not " The barn is big is true", nor problematic sentences such as "This sentence is false".
  • Define truth just for the sentences in that subset.
  • Then extend the definition of truth to include sentences that predicate truth or falsity of one of the original subset of sentences. So "The barn is big is true" is now included, but not either "This sentence is false" nor "'The barn is big is true' is true".
  • Next, define truth for all sentences that predicate truth or falsity of a member of the second set. Imagine this process repeated infinitely, so that truth is defined for The barn is big; then for "The barn is big is true"; then for "'The barn is big is true' is true", and so on.
Notice that truth never gets defined for sentences like This sentence is false, since it was not in the original subset and does not predicate truth of any sentence in the original or any subsequent set. In Kripke's terms, these are "ungrounded." Since these sentences are never assigned either truth or falsehood even if the process is carried out infinitely, Kripke's theory implies that some sentences are neither true nor false. This contradicts the Principle of bivalence: every sentence must be either true or false. Since this principle is a key premise in deriving the Liar paradox, the paradox is dissolved.[52]
However, it has been shown by Gödel that self-reference cannot be avoided naively, since propositions about seemingly unrelated objects can have an informal self-referential meaning; in Gödel's work, these objects are integer numbers, and they have an informal meaning regarding propositions. In fact, this idea - manifested by the diagonal lemma - is the basis for Tarski's theorem that truth cannot be consistently defined.
It has thus been claimed [53] that Kripke's system indeed leads to contradiction: while its truth predicate is only partial, it does give truth value (true/false) to propositions such as the one built in Tarski's proof, and is therefore inconsistent. While there is still a debate on whether Tarski's proof can be implemented to every similar partial truth system, none have been shown to be consistent by acceptable methods used in mathematical logic.

Notable views


Ancient history

The ancient Greek origins of the words "true" and "truth" have some consistent definitions throughout great spans of history that were often associated with topics of logic, geometry, mathematics, deduction, induction, and natural philosophy.
Socrates', Plato's and Aristotle's ideas about truth are seen by some as consistent with correspondence theory. In his Metaphysics, Aristotle stated: "To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true".[54] The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy proceeds to say of Aristotle:
"(...) Aristotle sounds much more like a genuine correspondence theorist in the Categories (12b11, 14b14), where he talks of "underlying things" that make statements true and implies that these "things" (pragmata) are logically structured situations or facts (viz., his sitting, his not sitting). Most influential is his claim in De Interpretatione (16a3) that thoughts are "likenessess" (homoiosis) of things. Although he nowhere defines truth in terms of a thought's likeness to a thing or fact, it is clear that such a definition would fit well into his overall philosophy of mind. (...)"[54]
Very similar statements can also be found in Plato (Cratylus 385b2, Sophist 263b).[54]
In Hinduism, Truth is defined as "unchangeable", "that which has no distortion", "that which is beyond distinctions of time, space, and person", "that which pervades the universe in all its constancy". The human body, therefore is not completely true as it changes with time, for example. There are many references, properties and explanations of truth by Hindu sages that explain varied facets of truth, such as the national motto of India: "Satyameva jayate" (Truth alone wins), as well as "Satyam muktaye" (Truth liberates), "Satya' is 'Parahit'artham' va'unmanaso yatha'rthatvam' satyam" (Satya is the benevolent use of words and the mind for the welfare of others or in other words responsibilities is truth too), "When one is firmly established in speaking truth, the fruits of action become subservient to him ( patanjali yogasutras, sutra number 2.36 ), "The face of truth is covered by a golden bowl. Unveil it, O Pusan (Sun), so that I who have truth as my duty (satyadharma) may see it!" (Brhadaranyaka V 15 1-4 and the brief IIsa Upanisad 15-18), Truth is superior to silence (Manusmriti), etc. Combined with other words, satya acts as modifier, like "ultra" or "highest," or more literally "truest," connoting purity and excellence. For example, satyaloka is the "highest heaven' and Satya Yuga is the "golden age" or best of the four cyclical cosmic ages in Hinduism, and so on.

Middle Ages

Avicenna

In early Islamic philosophy, Avicenna (Ibn Sina) defined truth in his work Kitab Al-Shifa The Book of Healing, Book I, Chapter 8, as:
"What corresponds in the mind to what is outside it."[55]
Avicenna elaborated on his definition of truth later in Book VIII, Chapter 6:
"The truth of a thing is the property of the being of each thing which has been established in it."[56]
However, this definition is merely a rendering of the medieval Latin translation of the work by Simone van Riet.[57] A modern translation of the original Arabic text states:
"Truth is also said of the veridical belief in the existence [of something]".[58]

Aquinas

Reevaluating Avicenna, and also Augustine and Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas stated in his Disputed Questions on Truth:
A natural thing, being placed between two intellects, is called true insofar as it conforms to either. It is said to be true with respect to its conformity with the divine intellect insofar as it fulfills the end to which it was ordained by the divine intellect... With respect to its conformity with a human intellect, a thing is said to be true insofar as it is such as to cause a true estimate about itself.[59]
Thus, for Aquinas, the truth of the human intellect (logical truth) is based on the truth in things (ontological truth).[60] Following this, he wrote an elegant re-statement of Aristotle's view in his Summa I.16.1:
Veritas est adæquatio intellectus et rei.
(Truth is the conformity of the intellect to the things.)
Aquinas also said that real things participate in the act of being of the Creator God who is Subsistent Being, Intelligence, and Truth. Thus, these beings possess the light of intelligibility and are knowable. These things (beings; reality) are the foundation of the truth that is found in the human mind, when it acquires knowledge of things, first through the senses, then through the understanding and the judgement done by reason. For Aquinas, human intelligence ("intus", within and "legere", to read) has the capability to reach the essence and existence of things because it has a non-material, spiritual element, although some moral, educational, and other elements might interfere with its capability.

Changing concepts of truth in the Middle Ages

Richard Firth Green examined the concept of truth in the later Middle Ages in his A Crisis of Truth, and concludes that roughly during the reign of Richard II of England the very meaning of the concept changes. The idea of the oath, which was so much part and parcel of for instance Romance literature,[61] changes from a subjective concept to a more objective one (in Derek Pearsall's summary).[62] Whereas truth (the "trouthe" of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) was first "an ethical truth in which truth is understood to reside in persons", in Ricardian England it "transforms...into a political truth in which truth is understood to reside in documents".[63]

Modern age

Kant


Immanuel Kant endorses a definition of truth along the lines of the correspondence theory of truth.[54] Kant writes in the Critique of Pure Reason: "The nominal definition of truth, namely that it is the agreement of cognition with its object, is here granted and presupposed".[64] However, Kant denies that this correspondence definition of truth provides us with a test or criterion to establish which judgements are true. Kant states in his logic lectures:
"(...) Truth, it is said, consists in the agreement of cognition with its object. In consequence of this mere nominal definition, my cognition, to count as true, is supposed to agree with its object. Now I can compare the object with my cognition, however, only by cognizing it. Hence my cognition is supposed to confirm itself, which is far short of being sufficient for truth. For since the object is outside me, the cognition in me, all I can ever pass judgement on is whether my cognition of the object agrees with my cognition of the object. The ancients called such a circle in explanation a diallelon. And actually the logicians were always reproached with this mistake by the sceptics, who observed that with this definition of truth it is just as when someone makes a statement before a court and in doing so appeals to a witness with whom no one is acquainted, but who wants to establish his credibility by maintaining that the one who called him as witness is an honest man. The accusation was grounded, too. Only the solution of the indicated problem is impossible without qualification and for every man. (...)"[65]
This passage makes use of his distinction between nominal and real definitions. A nominal definition explains the meaning of a linguistic expression. A real definition describes the essence of certain objects and enable us to determine whether any given item falls within the definition.[66] Kant holds that the definition of truth is merely nominal and, therefore, we cannot employ it to establish which judgements are true. According to Kant, the ancient skeptics were critical of the logicians for holding that, by means of a merely nominal definition of truth, they can establish which judgements are true. They were trying to do something that is "impossible without qualification and for every man".[65]

Hegel

Georg Hegel distanced his philosophy from psychology by presenting truth as being an external self-moving object instead of being related to inner, subjective thoughts. Hegel's truth is analogous to the mechanics of a material body in motion under the influence of its own inner force. "Truth is its own self-movement within itself."[67] Teleological truth moves itself in the three-step form of dialectical triplicity toward the final goal of perfect, final, absolute truth. According to Hegel, the progression of philosophical truth is a resolution of past oppositions into increasingly more accurate approximations of absolute truth. Chalybäus used the terms "thesis", "antithesis", and "synthesis" to describe Hegel's dialectical triplicity. The "thesis" consists of an incomplete historical movement. To resolve the incompletion, an "antithesis" occurs which opposes the "thesis." In turn, the "synthesis" appears when the "thesis" and "antithesis" become reconciled and a higher level of truth is obtained. This "synthesis" thereby becomes a "thesis," which will again necessitate an "antithesis," requiring a new "synthesis" until a final state is reached as the result of reason's historical movement. History is the Absolute Spirit moving toward a goal. This historical progression will finally conclude itself when the Absolute Spirit understands its own infinite self at the very end of history. Absolute Spirit will then be the complete expression of an infinite God.

Schopenhauer

For Arthur Schopenhauer,[68] a judgment is a combination or separation of two or more concepts. If a judgment is to be an expression of knowledge, it must have a sufficient reason or ground by which the judgment could be called true. Truth is the reference of a judgment to something different from itself which is its sufficient reason (ground). Judgments can have material, formal, transcendental, or metalogical truth. A judgment has material truth if its concepts are based on intuitive perceptions that are generated from sensations. If a judgment has its reason (ground) in another judgment, its truth is called logical or formal. If a judgment, of, for example, pure mathematics or pure science, is based on the forms (space, time, causality) of intuitive, empirical knowledge, then the judgment has transcendental truth.

Kierkegaard

When Søren Kierkegaard, as his character Johannes Climacus, ends his writings: My thesis was, subjectivity, heartfelt is the truth, he does not advocate for subjectivism in its extreme form (the theory that something is true simply because one believes it to be so), but rather that the objective approach to matters of personal truth cannot shed any light upon that which is most essential to a person's life. Objective truths are concerned with the facts of a person's being, while subjective truths are concerned with a person's way of being. Kierkegaard agrees that objective truths for the study of subjects like mathematics, science, and history are relevant and necessary, but argues that objective truths do not shed any light on a person's inner relationship to existence. At best, these truths can only provide a severely narrowed perspective that has little to do with one's actual experience of life.[69]
While objective truths are final and static, subjective truths are continuing and dynamic. The truth of one's existence is a living, inward, and subjective experience that is always in the process of becoming. The values, morals, and spiritual approaches a person adopts, while not denying the existence of objective truths of those beliefs, can only become truly known when they have been inwardly appropriated through subjective experience. Thus, Kierkegaard criticizes all systematic philosophies which attempt to know life or the truth of existence via theories and objective knowledge about reality. As Kierkegaard claims, human truth is something that is continually occurring, and a human being cannot find truth separate from the subjective experience of one's own existing, defined by the values and fundamental essence that consist of one's way of life.[70]

Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche believed the search for truth, or 'the will to truth', was a consequence of the will to power of philosophers. He thought that truth should be used as long as it promoted life and the will to power, and he thought untruth was better than truth if it had this life enhancement as a consequence. As he wrote in Beyond Good and Evil, "The falseness of a judgment is to us not necessarily an objection to a judgment... The question is to what extent it is life-advancing, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps even species-breeding..." (aphorism 4). He proposed the will to power as a truth only because, according to him, it was the most life-affirming and sincere perspective one could have.
Robert Wicks discusses Nietzsche's basic view of truth as follows:
"(...) Some scholars regard Nietzsche's 1873 unpublished essay, "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense" ("Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn") as a keystone in his thought. In this essay, Nietzsche rejects the idea of universal constants, and claims that what we call "truth" is only "a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms." His view at this time is that arbitrariness completely prevails within human experience: concepts originate via the very artistic transference of nerve stimuli into images; "truth" is nothing more than the invention of fixed conventions for merely practical purposes, especially those of repose, security and consistence. (...)"[71]

Whitehead

Alfred North Whitehead, a British mathematician who became an American philosopher, said: "There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil".[72]
The logical progression or connection of this line of thought is to conclude that truth can lie, since half-truths are deceptive and may lead to a false conclusion.

Nishida

According to Kitaro Nishida, "knowledge of things in the world begins with the differentiation of unitary consciousness into knower and known and ends with self and things becoming one again. Such unification takes form not only in knowing but in the valuing (of truth) that directs knowing, the willing that directs action, and the feeling or emotive reach that directs sensing."[73]

Fromm

Erich Fromm finds that trying to discuss truth as "absolute truth" is sterile and that emphasis ought to be placed on "optimal truth". He considers truth as stemming from the survival imperative of grasping one's environment physically and intellectually, whereby young children instinctively seek truth so as to orient themselves in "a strange and powerful world". The accuracy of their perceived approximation of the truth will therefore have direct consequences on their ability to deal with their environment. Fromm can be understood to define truth as a functional approximation of reality. His vision of optimal truth is described partly in "Man from Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics" (1947), from which excerpts are included below.
the dichotomy between 'absolute = perfect' and 'relative = imperfect' has been superseded in all fields of scientific thought, where "it is generally recognized that there is no absolute truth but nevertheless that there are objectively valid laws and principles".
In that respect, "a scientifically or rationally valid statement means that the power of reason is applied to all the available data of observation without any of them being suppressed or falsified for the sake of a desired result". The history of science is "a history of inadequate and incomplete statements, and every new insight makes possible the recognition of the inadequacies of previous propositions and offers a springboard for creating a more adequate formulation."
As a result "the history of thought is the history of an ever-increasing approximation to the truth. Scientific knowledge is not absolute but optimal; it contains the optimum of truth attainable in a given historical period." Fromm furthermore notes that "different cultures have emphasized various aspects of the truth" and that increasing interaction between cultures allows for these aspects to reconcile and integrate, increasing further the approximation to the truth.

Foucault


Truth, says Michel Foucault, is problematic when any attempt is made to see truth as an "objective" quality. He prefers not to use the term truth itself but "Regimes of Truth". In his historical investigations he found truth to be something that was itself a part of, or embedded within, a given power structure. Thus Foucault's view shares much in common with the concepts of Nietzsche. Truth for Foucault is also something that shifts through various episteme throughout history.[74]

Baudrillard

Jean Baudrillard considered truth to be largely simulated, that is pretending to have something, as opposed to dissimulation, pretending to not have something. He took his cue from iconoclasts who he claims knew that images of God demonstrated that God did not exist.[75] Baudrillard wrote in "Precession of the Simulacra":
The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth—it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true.
—Ecclesiastes[76][77]
Some examples of simulacra that Baudrillard cited were: that prisons simulate the "truth" that society is free; scandals (e.g., Watergate) simulate that corruption is corrected; Disney simulates that the U.S. itself is an adult place. One must remember that though such examples seem extreme, such extremity is an important part of Baudrillard's theory. For a less extreme example, consider how movies usually end with the bad being punished, humiliated, or otherwise failing, thus affirming for viewers the concept that the good end happily and the bad unhappily, a narrative which implies that the status quo and established power structures are largely legitimate.[75]

In medicine and psychiatry

There is controversy as to the truth value of a proposition made in bad faith self-deception, such as when a hypochondriac has a complaint with no physical symptom.[78]

In religion: omniscience

Main article: Omniscience
In a religious context, perfect knowledge of all truth about all things (omniscience) is regarded by some religions, particularly Buddhism and the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism), as an attribute of a divine being.[79] In the Abrahamic view, God can exercise divine judgment, judging the dead on the basis of perfect knowledge of their lives.[80][81]

বৌদ্ধ মতে ঈশ্বরঃ
Gautama Buddha rejected the existence of a creator deity,[1][2] refused to endorse many views on creation[3] and stated that questions on the origin of the world are not ultimately useful for ending suffering.[4][5]
Buddhism, instead, emphasizes the system of causal relationships underlying the universe (pratītyasamutpāda or Dependent Origination) which constitute the natural order (dhamma) and source of enlightenment. No dependence of phenomena on a supernatural reality is asserted in order to explain the behaviour of matter. According to the doctrine of the Buddha, a human being must study nature (dhamma vicaya) in order to attain personal wisdom (prajna) regarding the nature of things (dharma). In Buddhism, the sole aim of spiritual practice is the complete alleviation of stress in samsara,[6][7] which is called nirvana.
Some teachers tell students beginning Buddhist meditation that the notion of divinity is not incompatible with Buddhism,[8] and at least one Buddhist scholar has indicated that describing Buddhism as nontheistic may be overly simplistic;[9] but many traditional theist beliefs are considered to pose a hindrance to the attainment of nirvana,[10] the highest goal of Buddhist practice.[11]
Despite this apparent nontheism, Buddhists consider veneration of the worthy ones[12] very important,[13] although the two main traditions of Buddhism differ mildly in their reverential attitudes. While Theravada Buddhists view the Buddha as a human being who attained nirvana or Buddhahood, through human efforts,[14] some Mahayana Buddhists consider him an embodiment of the cosmic Dharmakaya, born for the benefit of others.[15] In addition, some Mahayana Buddhists worship their chief Bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara,[16] and hope to embody him.[17]
Some Buddhists accept the existence of beings in higher realms (see Buddhist cosmology), known as devas, but they, like humans, are said to be suffering in samsara,[18] and are not necessarily wiser than us. In fact, the Buddha is often portrayed as a teacher of the gods,[19] and superior to them.[20] Despite this there are believed to be enlightened devas.[21]
Some variations of Buddhism express a philosophical belief in an eternal Buddha: a representation of omnipresent enlightenment and a symbol of the true nature of the universe. The primordial aspect that interconnects every part of the universe is the clear light of the eternal Buddha, where everything timelessly arises and dissolves.[22][23][24]

Early Buddhism

As scholar Surian Yee describes, "the attitude of the Buddha as portrayed in the Nikayas is more anti-speculative than specifically atheistic", although Gautama did regard the belief in a creator deity to be unhealthy.[25] However, the Samaññaphala Sutta placed materialism and amoralism together with eternalism as forms of wrong view.[25]
As Hayes describes it, "In the Nikaya literature, the question of the existence of God is treated primarily from either an epistemological point of view or a moral point of view. As a problem of epistemology, the question of God's existence amounts to a discussion of whether or not a religious seeker can be certain that there is a greatest good and that therefore his efforts to realize a greatest good will not be a pointless struggle towards an unrealistic goal. And as a problem in morality, the question amounts to a discussion of whether man himself is ultimately responsible for all the displeasure that he feels or whether there exists a superior being who inflicts displeasure upon man whether he deserves it or not... the Buddha Gotama is portrayed not as an atheist who claims to be able to prove God's nonexistence, but rather as a skeptic with respect to other teachers' claims to be able to lead their disciples to the highest good."[26]
Citing the Devadaha Sutta ('Majjhima Nikaya 101), Hayes remarks that "while the reader is left to conclude that it is attachment rather than God, actions in past lives, fate, type of birth or efforts in this life that is responsible for our experiences of sorrow, no systematic argument is given in an attempt to disprove the existence of God."[27]
In the Pāli Canon the Buddha tells Vasettha that the Tathāgata (the Buddha) was Dharmakāya, the 'Truth-body' or the 'Embodiment of Truth', as well as Dharmabhuta, 'Truth-become', 'One who has become Truth.'[28][29]
The Buddha is equated with the Dhamma:
... and the Buddha comforts him, "Enough, Vakkali. Why do you want to see this filthy body? Whoever sees the Dhamma sees me; whoever sees me sees the Dhamma."[30]
Putikaya, the "decomposing" body, is distinguished from the eternal Dhamma body of the Buddha and the Bodhisattva body.

Brahma in the Pali Canon

Brahma is among the common gods found in the Pali Canon. Brahma (in common with all other devas) is subject to change, final decline and death, just as are all other sentient beings in samsara (the plane of continual reincarnation and suffering). In fact there are several different Brahma worlds and several kinds of Brahmas in Buddhism, all of which however are just beings stuck in samsara for a long while. Sir Charles Eliot describes attitudes towards Brahma in early Buddhism as follows:
There comes a time when this world system passes away and then certain beings are reborn in the "World of Radiance" and remain there a long time. Sooner or later, the world system begins to evolve again and the palace of Brahma appears, but it is empty. Then some being whose time is up falls from the "World of Radiance" and comes to life in the palace and remains there alone. At last he wishes for company, and it so happens that other beings whose time is up fall from the "World of Radiance" and join him. And the first being thinks that he is Great Brahma, the Creator, because when he felt lonely and wished for companions other beings appeared. And the other beings accept this view. And at last one of Brahma’s retinue falls from that state and is born in the human world and, if he can remember his previous birth, he reflects that he is transitory but that Brahma still remains and from this he draws the erroneous conclusion that Brahma is eternal.[31]

Other common gods referred to in the Canon

Many of the other gods in the Pali Canon find a common mythological role in Hindu literature. Some common gods and goddesses are Indra, Aapo (Varuna), Vayo (Vayu), Tejo (Agni), Surya, Pajapati (Prajapati), Soma, Yasa, Venhu (Viṣṇu), Mahadeva (Siva), Vijja (Saraswati), Usha, Pathavi (Prithvi), Sri (Lakshmi), Kuvera (Kubera), several yakkhas (Yakshas), gandhabbas (Gandharvas), Nāgas, garula (Garuda), sons of Bali, Veroca, etc.[32] While in Hindu texts some of these gods and goddesses are considered embodiments of the Supreme Being, the Buddhist view is that all gods and goddesses were bound to samsara. The world of gods according to the Buddha presents a being with too many pleasures and distractions.

Abhidharma and Yogacara analysis

The Theravada Abhidhamma tradition did not tend to elaborate argumentation against the existence of God, but in the Abhidharmakośa of the Sarvāstivāda, Vasubandhu does actively argue against the existence of a creator, stating that the universe has no beginning.[33]
The Chinese monk Xuanzang studied Buddhism in India during the 7th century CE, staying at Nālandā University. There, he studied the Consciousness Only teachings passed down from Asanga and Vasubandhu, and taught to him by the abbot Śīlabhadra. In his comprehensive work Cheng Weishi Lun (Skt. Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi Śastra), Xuanzang refutes the Indian philosophical doctrine of a "Great Lord" (Īśvara) or a Great Brahmā, a self-existent and omnipotent creator deity who is ruler of all existence.[34]
According to one doctrine, there is a great, self-existent deity whose substance is real and who is all-pervading, eternal, and the producer of all phenomena. This doctrine is unreasonable. If something produces something, it is not eternal, the non-eternal is not all-pervading, and what is not all-pervading is not real. If the deity's substance is all-pervading and eternal, it must contain all powers and be able to produce all phenomena everywhere, at all times, and simultaneously. If he produces phenomena when a desire arises, or according to conditions, this contradicts the doctrine of a single cause. Or else, desires and conditions would arise spontaneously since the cause is eternal. Other doctrines claim that there is a great Brahma, a Time, a Space, a Starting Point, a Nature, an Ether, a Self, etc., that is eternal and really exists, is endowed with all powers, and is able to produce all phenomena. We refute all these in the same way we did the concept of the Great Lord.[35]

Mahayana and Vajrayana doctrines

In the pramana tradition, Dharmakīrti advances a number of arguments against the existence of a creator god in his Pramāṇavārika, following in the footsteps of Vasubandhu.[36] Later Mahayana scholars such as Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla continued this tradition.[37] Some Mahayana and Dzogchen traditions of Buddhism, however, do assert an underlying monistic 'ground of being' or tathagatagarbha, which is stated to be indestructibly present in all beings and phenomena. The Tathagatagarbha Sutras, in particular, enunciate this view.

Tathagatagarbha, Dharmakaya and God

Mahayana Buddhism, unlike Theravada, talks of the mind using terms such as "the womb of the Thus-come One" (tathagatagarbha). The affirmation of emptiness by positive terminology is radically different from the early Buddhist doctrines of Anatta and refusal to personify or objectify any Supreme Reality.
In the tathagatagarbha tradition, the Buddha is on occasion identified with the Dharmakaya, Supreme Reality, which possesses the god-like qualities of eternality, inscrutability and immutability. In his monograph on the tathagatagarbha doctrine as formulated in the only ancient Indian commentarial analysis of the doctrine extant - the Uttaratantra - Professor C. D. Sebastian writes of how the 'divinised' Buddha is accorded worship and is characterised by a compassionate love, which becomes manifest in the world in the form of salvific activity to liberate beings from suffering. Sebastian stresses, however, that the Buddha thus conceived, although deemed worthy of worship, was never viewed as synonymous to a Creator God:
"Mahayana Buddhism is not only intellectual, but it is also devotional... in Mahayana, Buddha was taken as God, as Supreme Reality itself that descended on the earth in human form for the good of mankind. The concept of Buddha (as equal to God in theistic systems) was never as a creator but as Divine Love that out of compassion (karuna) embodied itself in human form to uplift suffering humanity. He was worshipped with fervent devotion... He represents the Absolute (paramartha satya), devoid of all plurality (sarva-prapancanta-vinirmukta) and has no beginning, middle and end... Buddha... is eternal, immutable... As such He represents Dharmakaya."
—Professor C. D. Sebastian[38]
According to the Tathagatagarbha sutras, the Buddha taught the existence of this spiritual essence called the tathagatagarbha or Buddha-nature, which is present in all beings and phenomena. B. Alan Wallace writes of this doctrine:
"The essential nature of the whole of samsara and nirvana is the absolute space (dhatu) of the tathagatagarbha, but this space is not to be confused with a mere absence of matter. Rather, this absolute space is imbued with all the infinite knowledge, compassion, power, and enlightened activities of the Buddha. Moreover, this luminous space is that which causes the phenomenal world to appear, and it is none other than the nature of one's own mind, which by nature is clear light."
—B. Alan Wallace[39]
Wallace further writes on how the primal Buddha, Samantabhadra, who in some scriptures is viewed as one with the tathagatagarbha, forms the very radiating foundation of both samsara and nirvana. Noting a progression within Buddhism from doctrines of a mind-stream (bhavanga) to that of the absolutised tathagatagarbha, Wallace comments that it may be too simple in the light of such doctrinal elements to define Buddhism unconditionally as "non-theistic":
"Samantabhadra, the primordial Buddha whose nature is identical with the tathagatagarbha within each sentient being, is the ultimate ground of samsara and nirvana; and the entire universe consists of nothing other than displays of this infinite, radiant, empty awareness. Thus, in light of the theoretical progression from the bhavanga to the tathagatagarbha to the primordial wisdom of the absolute space of reality, Buddhism is not so simply non-theistic as it may appear at first glance."
—B. Alan Wallace[40]

Vajrayana views

In some Mahayana traditions, the Buddha is indeed worshipped as a virtual divinity who is possessed of supernatural qualities and powers. Guang Xing writes: "The Buddha worshiped by Mahayanist followers is an omnipotent divinity endowed with numerous supernatural attributes and qualities ...[He] is described almost as an omnipotent and almighty godhead."[41]
The Buddhist scholar B. Alan Wallace has also indicated (as shown above) that saying that Buddhism as a whole is "non-theistic" may be an over-simplification. Wallace discerns similarities between some forms of Vajrayana Buddhism and notions of a divine "ground of being" and creation. He writes: "a careful analysis of Vajrayana Buddhist cosmogony, specifically as presented in the Atiyoga tradition of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, which presents itself as the culmination of all Buddhist teachings, reveals a theory of a transcendent ground of being and a process of creation that bear remarkable similarities with views presented in Vedanta and Neoplatonic Western Christian theories of creation."[42] In fact, Wallace sees these views as so similar that they seem almost to be different manifestations of the same theory. He further comments: "Vajrayana Buddhism, Vedanta, and Neoplatonic Christianity have so much in common that they could almost be regarded as varying interpretations of a single theory."[43]
The Tibetan monk-scholar Dolpopa of the Tibetan Jonang tradition speaks of a universal spiritual essence or noumenon (the Buddha as Dharmakaya) which contains all sentient beings in their totality, and quotes from the Sutra on the Inconceivable Mysteries of the One-Gone-Thus:
"... space dwells in all appearances of forms .. similarly, the body of the one-gone-thus [i.e. Buddha] also thoroughly dwells in all appearances of sentient beings ... For example, all appearances of forms are included inside space. Similarly, all appearances of sentient beings are included inside the body of the one-gone-thus [i.e. Buddha as Dharmakaya]."[44]
Dolpopa further quotes Buddhist scripture when he writes of this unified spiritual essence or noumenon as the 'supreme Over-Self of all continuums'[45] and as "Self always residing in all, as the selfhood of all."[46]

Yogacara and the Absolute

Another scholar sees a Buddhist Absolute in Consciousness. Writing on the Yogacara school of Buddhism, A. K. Chatterjee remarks: "The Absolute is a non-dual consciousness. The duality of the subject and object does not pertain to it. It is said to be void (sunya), devoid of duality; in itself it is perfectly real, in fact the only reality ...There is no consciousness of the Absolute; Consciousness is the Absolute."[47]
While this is a traditional Tibetan interpretation of Yogacara views, it has been rejected by modern Western scholarship, namely by Kochumuttom, Anacker, Kalupahana, Dunne, Lusthaus, Powers, and Wayman.[48][49][50] Scholar Dan Lusthaus writes: "They [Yogacarins] did not focus on consciousness to assert it as ultimately real (Yogācāra claims consciousness is only conventionally real since it arises from moment to moment due to fluctuating causes and conditions), but rather because it is the cause of the karmic problem they are seeking to eliminate."[49]

Zen and the Absolute

A further name for the irreducible, time-and-space-transcending mysterious Truth or Essence of Buddhic Reality spoken of in some Mahayana and tantric texts is the Dharmakaya (Body of Truth). Of this the Zen Buddhist master Sokei-An, says:[51]
... dharmakaya [is] the equivalent of God ... The Buddha also speaks of no time and no space, where if I make a sound there is in that single moment a million years. It is spaceless like radio waves, like electric space - intrinsic. The Buddha said that there is a mirror that reflects consciousness. In this electric space a million miles and a pinpoint - a million years and a moment - are exactly the same. It is pure essence ... We call it 'original consciousness' - 'original akasha' - perhaps God in the Christian sense. I am afraid of speaking about anything that is not familiar to me. No one can know what IT is ...
The same Zen adept, Sokei-An, further comments:[52]
The creative power of the universe is not a human being; it is Buddha. The one who sees, and the one who hears, is not this eye or ear, but the one who is this consciousness. This One is Buddha. This One appears in every mind. This One is common to all sentient beings, and is God.
The Rinzai Zen Buddhist master, Soyen Shaku, speaking to Americans at the beginning of the 20th century, discusses how in essence the idea of God is not absent from Buddhism, when understood as ultimate, true Reality:[53]
At the outset, let me state that Buddhism is not atheistic as the term is ordinarily understood. It has certainly a God, the highest reality and truth, through which and in which this universe exists. However, the followers of Buddhism usually avoid the term God, for it savors so much of Christianity, whose spirit is not always exactly in accord with the Buddhist interpretation of religious experience ... To define more exactly the Buddhist notion of the highest being, it may be convenient to borrow the term very happily coined by a modern German scholar, 'panentheism', according to which God is ... all and one and more than the totality of existence .... As I mentioned before, Buddhists do not make use of the term God, which characteristically belongs to Christian terminology. An equivalent most commonly used is Dharmakaya ... When the Dharmakaya is most concretely conceived it becomes the Buddha, or Tathagata ...
On the other hand, Kōshō Uchiyama explicitly stated in From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment that Buddhism has no god.
The fundamental difference between Buddhism and other religions is that Buddhism has no God or gods before whom people bow down in return for some peace of mind. The spirit enmeshed in the Buddha's teachings refuses to offer a god in exchange for freedom from anxiety. Instead, freedom from anxiety can only be found at that point where the Self settles naturally upon itself.[54]

Primordial Buddhas

Main article: Eternal Buddha
Theories regarding a self-existent immutable substantial "ground of being" or substrate were common in India prior to the Buddha, and were rejected by him: "The Buddha, however, refusing to admit any metaphysical principle as a common thread holding the moments of encountered phenomena together, rejects the Upanishadic notion of an immutable substance or principle underlying the world and the person and producing phenomena out of its inherent power, be it 'being', atman, brahman, or 'god.'"[55]
In later Mahayana literature, however, the idea of an eternal, all-pervading, all-knowing, immaculate, uncreated and deathless Ground of Being (the dharmadhatu, inherently linked to the sattvadhatu, the realm of beings), which is the Awakened Mind (bodhicitta) or Dharmakaya ("body of Truth") of the Buddha himself, is attributed to the Buddha in a number of Mahayana sutras, and is found in various tantras as well. In some Mahayana texts, such a principle is occasionally presented as manifesting in a more personalised form as a primordial buddha, such as Samantabhadra, Vajradhara, Vairochana, and Adi-Buddha, among others.
In Buddhist tantric and Dzogchen scriptures, too, this immanent and transcendent Dharmakaya (the ultimate essence of the Buddha’s being) is portrayed as the primordial Buddha, Samantabhadra, worshipped as the primordial lord. In a study of Dzogchen, Sam van Schaik mentions how Samantabhadra Buddha is indeed seen as ‘the heart essence of all buddhas, the Primordial Lord, the noble Victorious One, Samantabhadra’.[56] Schaik indicates that Samantabhadra is not to be viewed as some kind of separate mindstream, apart from the mindstreams of sentient beings, but should be known as a universal nirvanic principle termed the Awakened Mind (bodhi-citta) and present in all.[57] Schaik quotes from the tantric texts, Experiencing the Enlightened Mind of Samantabhadra and The Subsequent Tantra of Great Perfection Instruction to portray Samantabhadra as an uncreated, reflexive, radiant, pure and vital Knowing (gnosis) which is present in all things:
The essence of all phenomena is the awakened mind; the mind of all Buddhas is the awakened mind; and the life-force of all sentient beings is the awakened mind, too … This unfabricated gnosis of the present moment is the reflexive luminosity, naked and stainless, the Primordial Lord himself.[58]
The Shingon Buddhist monk, Dohan, regarded the two great Buddhas, Amida and Vairocana, as one and the same Dharmakaya Buddha and as the true nature at the core of all beings and phenomena. There are several realisations that can accrue to the Shingon practitioner of which Dohan speaks in this connection, as James Sanford points out: there is the realisation that Amida is the Dharmakaya Buddha, Vairocana; then there is the realisation that Amida as Vairocana is eternally manifest within this universe of time and space; and finally there is the innermost realisation that Amida is the true nature, material and spiritual, of all beings, that he is 'the omnivalent wisdom-body, that he is the unborn, unmanifest, unchanging reality that rests quietly at the core of all phenomena'.[59]
Similar God-like descriptions are encountered in the All-Creating King Tantra (Kunjed Gyalpo Tantra), where the universal Mind of Awakening (in its mode as "Samantabhadra Buddha") declares of itself:[60]
I am the core of all that exists. I am the seed of all that exists. I am the cause of all that exists. I am the trunk of all that exists. I am the foundation of all that exists. I am the root of existence. I am "the core" because I contain all phenomena. I am "the seed" because I give birth to everything. I am "the cause" because all comes from me. I am "the trunk" because the ramifications of every event sprout from me. I am "the foundation" because all abides in me. I am called "the root" because I am everything.
The Karandavyuha Sutra presents the great bodhisattva, Avalokitesvara, as a kind of supreme lord of the cosmos. A striking feature of Avalokitesvara in this sutra is his creative power, as he is said to be the progenitor of various heavenly bodies and divinities. Alexander Studholme, in his monograph on the sutra, writes:
The sun and moon are said to be born from the bodhisattva's eyes, Mahesvara [Siva] from his brow, Brahma from his shoulders, Narayana [Vishnu] from his heart, Sarasvati from his teeth, the winds from his mouth, the earth from his feet and the sky from his stomach.'[61]
Avalokitesvara himself is linked in the versified version of the sutra to the first Buddha, the Adi Buddha, who is 'svayambhu' (self-existent, not born from anything or anyone). Studholme comments: "Avalokitesvara himself, the verse sutra adds, is an emanation of the Adibuddha, or 'primordial Buddha', a term that is explicitly said to be synoymous with Svayambhu and Adinatha, 'primordial lord'."[62]
The Primordial Buddha is ultimately both the individual mind and the immanent ominpresent enlightenment of the macrocosmical reality. The individual and external phenomena being seen as interdependent.

Eternal Buddha of Shin Buddhism

In Shin Buddhism, Amida Buddha is viewed as the eternal Buddha who manifested as Shakyamuni in (Lumbini) Nepal and who is the personification of Nirvana itself. The Shin Buddhist priest, John Paraskevopoulos, in his monograph on Shin Buddhism, writes:
'In Shin Buddhism, Nirvana or Ultimate Reality (also known as the "Dharma-Body" or Dharmakaya in the original Sanskrit) has assumed a more concrete form as (a) the Buddha of Infinite Light (Amitabha) and Infinite Life (Amitayus)and (b) the "Pure Land" or "Land of Utmost Bliss" (Sukhavati), the realm over which this Buddha is said to preside ... Amida is the Eternal Buddha who is said to have taken form as Shakyamuni and his teachings in order to become known to us in ways we can readily comprehend.'[63]
John Paraskevopoulos elucidates the notion of Nirvana, of which Amida is an embodiment, in the following terms:
... [Nirvana's] more positive connotation is that of a higher state of being, the dispelling of illusion and the corresponding joy of liberation. An early Buddhist scripture describes Nirvana as: ... the far shore, the subtle, the very difficult to see, the undisintegrating, the unmanifest, the peaceful, the deathless, the sublime, the auspicious, the secure, the destruction of craving, the wonderful, the amazing, the unailing, the unafflicted, dispassion, purity, freedom, the island, the shelter, the asylum, the refuge ... (Samyutta Nikaya)[64]
This Nirvana is seen as eternal and of one nature, indeed as the essence of all things. Paraskevopoulos tells of how the Mahaparinirvana Sutra speaks of Nirvana as eternal, pure, blissful and true self:
In Mahayana Buddhism it is taught that there is fundamentally one reality which, in its highest and purest dimension, is experienced as Nirvana. It is also known, as we have seen, as the Dharma-Body (considered the ultimate form of Being) or "Suchness" (Tathata in Sanskrit) when viewed as the essence of all things ... "The Dharma-Body is eternity, bliss, true self and purity. It is forever free of all birth, ageing, sickness and death" (Nirvana Sutra)[65]
To attain this Self, however, it is needful to transcend the 'small self' and its pettiness with the help of an 'external' agency, Amida Buddha. This is the view promulgated by the Jodo Shinshu founding Buddhist master, Shinran Shonin. John Paraskevopoulos comments on this:
Shinran's great insight was that we cannot conquer the self by the self. Some kind of external agency is required: (a) to help us to shed light on our ego as it really is in all its petty and baneful guises; and (b) to enable us to subdue the small 'self' with a view to realising the Great Self by awakening to Amida's light.[66]
When that Great Self of Amida's light is realised, Shin Buddhism is able to see the Infinite which transcends the care-worn mundane. John Paraskevopoulos concludes his monograph on Shin Buddhism thus:
It is time we discarded the tired view of Buddhism as a dry and forensic rationalism , lacking in warmth and devotion ... By hearing the call of Amida Buddha we become awakened to true reality and its unfathomable working ... to live a life that dances jubilantly in the resplendent light of the Infinite.[67]

Devas and the supernatural in Buddhism

While Buddhist traditions do not deny the existence of supernatural beings (e.g., the devas, of which many are discussed in Buddhist scripture), it does not ascribe powers, in the typical Western sense, for creation, salvation or judgement, to the "gods". They are regarded as having the power to affect worldly events in much the same way as humans and animals have the power to do so. Just as humans can affect the world more than animals, devas can affect the world more than humans. While gods may be more powerful than humans, Buddhists believe none of them are absolute, and like humans, are also suffering in samsara, the ongoing cycle of death and subsequent rebirth. Buddhists see gods as not having attained nirvana, and still subject to emotions, including jealousy, anger, delusion, sorrow, etc. Thus, since a Buddha is believed to show the way to nirvana, a Buddha is called "the teacher of the gods and humans" (Skrt: śāsta deva-manuṣyāṇaṃ). According to the Pali Canon the gods have powers to affect only so far as their realm of influence or control allows them. In this sense therefore, they are no closer to nirvana than humans and no wiser in the ultimate sense. A dialogue between the king Pasenadi Kosala, his general Vidudabha and the historical Buddha reveals a lot about the relatively weaker position of gods in Buddhism.[68]
Though not believing in a creator God, Buddhists inherited the Indian cosmology of the time which includes various types of 'god' realms such as the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, the Four Great Kings, and so on. Deva-realms are part of the various possible types of existence in the Buddhist cosmology. Rebirth as a deva is attributed to virtuous actions performed in previous lives. Beings that had meditated are thought to be reborn in more and more subtle realms with increasingly vast life spans, in accord with their meditative ability. In particular, the highest deva realms are pointed out as false paths in meditation that the meditator should be aware of. Like any existence within the cycle of rebirth (samsara), a life as a deva is only temporary. At the time of death, a large part of the former deva's good karma has been expended, leaving mostly negative karma and a likely rebirth in one of the three lower realms. Therefore, Buddhists make a special effort not to be reborn in deva realms.
It is also noteworthy that devas in Buddhism have no role to play in liberation. Sir Charles Eliot describes God in early Buddhism as follows:
The attitude of early Buddhism to the spirit world — the hosts of deities and demons who people this and other spheres. Their existence is assumed, but the truths of religion are not dependent on them, and attempts to use their influence by sacrifices and oracles are deprecated as vulgar practices similar to juggling.
The systems of philosophy then in vogue were mostly not theistic, and, strange as the words may sound, religion had little to do with the gods. If this be thought to rest on a mistranslation, it is certainly true that the dhamma had very little to do with devas.
Often as the Devas figure in early Buddhist stories, the significance of their appearance nearly always lies in their relations with the Buddha or his disciples. Of mere mythology, such as the dealings of Brahma and Indra with other gods, there is little. In fact the gods, though freely invoked as accessories, are not taken seriously, and there are some extremely curious passages in which Gotama seems to laugh at them, much as the sceptics of the 18th century laughed at Jehovah. Thus in the [Pali Canon] Kevaddha Sutta he relates how a monk who was puzzled by a metaphysical problem applied to various gods and finally accosted Brahma himself in the presence of all his retinue. After hearing the question, which was "Where do the elements cease and leave no trace behind?" Brahma replies, "I am the Great Brahma, the Supreme, the Mighty, the All-seeing, the Ruler, the Lord of all, the Controller, the Creator, the Chief of all, appointing to each his place, the Ancient of days, the Father of all that are and are to be." "But," said the monk, "I did not ask you, friend, whether you were indeed all you now say, but I ask you where the four elements cease and leave no trace." Then the Great Brahma took him by the arm and led him aside and said, "These gods think I know and understand everything. Therefore I gave no answer in their presence. But I do not know the answer to your question and you had better go and ask the Buddha."[31]
The Pali Canon also attributes supernatural powers to enlightened beings (Buddhas), that even gods may not have. In a dialogue between king Ajatasattu and the Buddha, enlightened beings are ascribed supranormal powers (like human flight, walking on water etc.), clairaudience, mind reading, recollection of past lives of oneself and others.[69]

Attitudes towards theories of creation

Reflecting a common understanding of the Buddha's earliest teachings, Nyanaponika Thera asserts:
From a study of the discourses of the Buddha preserved in the Pali canon, it will be seen that the idea of a personal deity, a creator god conceived to be eternal and omnipotent, is incompatible with the Buddha's teachings. On the other hand, conceptions of an impersonal godhead of any description, such as world-soul, etc., are excluded by the Buddha's teachings on Anatta, non-self or unsubstantiality. ... In Buddhist literature, the belief in a creator god (issara-nimmana-vada) is frequently mentioned and rejected, along with other causes wrongly adduced to explain the origin of the world.[70]
In addition, nowhere in the Pali Canon are Buddhas ascribed powers of creation, salvation and judgement. In fact, Buddhism is critical of all theories on the origin of the universe[71] and holds the belief in creation as a fetter binding one to samsara. However, the Aggañña Sutta does contain a detailed account of the Buddha describing the origin of human life on earth. In this text, the Buddha provides an explanation of the caste system alternate to the one contained in the Vedas, and shows why one caste is not really any better than the other.[72] According to scholar Richard Gombrich, the sutta gives strong evidence that it was conceived entirely as a satire of pre-existing beliefs,[73] and he and scholar David Kalupahana have asserted that the primary intent of this text is to satirize and debunk the brahminical claims regarding the divine nature of the caste system, showing that it is nothing but a human convention.[74][75] Strictly speaking, the sutta is not a cosmogony, as in Buddhism, an absolute beginning is inconceivable. Since the earliest times Buddhists have, however, taken it seriously as an account of the origins of society and kingship.[73] Gombrich, however, finds it to be a parody of brahminical cosmogony as presented in the Rig Vedic "Hymn of Creation" (RV X, 129) and BAU 1, 2.[76] He states: "The Buddha never intended to propound a cosmogony. If we take a close look at the Aggañña Sutta, there are considerable incoherencies if it is taken seriously as an explanatory account - though once it is perceived to be a parody these inconsistencies are of no account." In particular, Gombrich finds that to view the Aggañña Sutta as a truthful account violates the basic Buddhist theory of how the law of karma operates, as Gombrich argues that beings cannot possibly be born in a realm (Streaming Radiance) higher than the Maha Brahma realm only to fall back to such a low realm of existence on Earth, and eventually succumb to sense craving as the first beings in a re-evolved human realm.[77] However, scholars Rupert Gethin and Brahmana Metteyya strongly disagree with Gombrich's complete dismissal as satire of the Aggañña Sutta.[78][79] Gethin states:
While certain of the details of the Agganna-sutta's account of the evolution of human society may be, as Gombrich has persuasively argued, satirical in intent, there is nothing in the Nikayas to suggest that these basic cosmological principles that I have identified should be so understood; there is nothing to suggest that the Agganna-sutta's introductory formula describing the expansion and contraction of the world is merely a joke. We should surely expect early Buddhism and indeed the Buddha to have some specific ideas about the nature of the round of rebirth, and essentially this is what the cosmological details presented in the Agganna-sutta and elsewhere in Nikayas constitute ... far from being out of key with what we can understand of Buddhist thought from the rest of the Nikayas, the cosmogonic views offered by the Aggañña Sutta in fact harmonize very well with it . .I would go further and say that something along the lines of the Aggañña myth is actually required by it.[79]
In the Aggañña Sutta the Buddha advises Vasettha that whoever has strong, deep rooted, and established belief in the Tathagatha, he can declare that he is the child of Bhagavan, born from the mouth of Dhamma, created from Dhamma, and the heir of Dhamma. Because the titles of the Tathagatha are: The Body of Dhamma, The Body of Brahma, the Manifestation of Dhamma, and the Manifestation of Brahma. That resonates well with the later Mahayana doctrine, though preceding it.
In Buddhism, the focus is primarily on the effect the belief in theories of creation and a creator have on the human mind. The Buddhist attitude towards every view is one of critical examination from the perspective of what effect the belief has on the mind and whether the belief binds one to samsara or not.
The Buddha declared that "it is not possible to know or determine the first beginning of the cycle of existence of beings who wander therein deluded by ignorance and obsessed by craving."[80] Speculation about the origin and extent of the universe is generally discouraged in early Buddhism.[81]

Theravada

Huston Smith describes early Buddhism as psychological rather than metaphysical.[82] Unlike theistic religions, which are founded on notions of God and related creation myths, Buddhism begins with the human condition as enumerated in the Four Noble Truths. Thus while most other religions attempt to pass a blanket judgement on the goodness of a pre-fallen world (e.g. 'He then looked at the world and saw that it was good.' Book of Genesis, Old Testament, Christian Bible) and therefore derive the greatness of its Creator, Early Buddhism denies that the question is even worth asking to begin with.[83] Instead it places emphasis on the human condition of clinging and the insubstantial nature of the world. This approach is often even in contrast with many of the Mahayana forms of Buddhism. No being, whether a god or an enlightened being (including the historical Buddha), is ascribed powers of creation, granting salvation and judgement. According to the Pali Canon, omnipotence cannot be ascribed to any being. Further, in Theravada Buddhism, there are no lands or heavens where a being is guaranteed nibbana (Skt. "nirvana") except in the Anāgāmi realms in the Pure Abodes (Pali: Sudhavasasa), which according to the historical Buddha require removal of the first five fetters (belief in permanent self, skeptical doubt about the Dhamma, clinging to rites and rituals, sensual lust, and hatred). In Early Buddhism there is no equivalent to the Mahayana "Pure Land" or magical abode of Buddhas where one is guaranteed to be enlightened by simply reciting the Amitabha mantra before death without removing any of the 10 fetters that bind us to saṃsāra. In fact, the very idea of a "Buddha" living in any heaven abode is not possible in Early Buddhism, as a "Buddha", by definition, is a being that is no longer clinging to any material or immaterial existence upon the death of the body (parinibbana).[84] The late Theravada philosophy states the principle of Bhavanga as the ground of being for all karmas. There are multiple Bhavanga streams which are manifested and responsible for the individual minds and continuous karmic streams.

Vajrayana

Tibetan schools of Buddhism speak of two truths, absolute and relative. Relative truth is regarded as the chain of ongoing causes and conditions that define experience within samsara, and ultimate truth is synonymous with emptiness. There are many philosophical viewpoints, but unique to the Vajrayana perspective is the expression (by meditators) of emptiness in experiential language, as opposed to the language of negation used by scholars to undo any conceptual fixation that would stand in the way of a correct understanding of emptiness. For example, one teacher from the Tibetan Kagyu school of Buddhism, Kalu Rinpoche, elucidates: "...pure mind cannot be located, but it is omnipresent and all-penetrating; it embraces and pervades all things. Moreover, it is beyond change, and its open nature is indestructible and atemporal."[85]

Veneration of the Buddha

Although an absolute creator god is absent in most forms of Buddhism, veneration or worship of the Buddha and other Buddhas does play a major role in all forms of Buddhism. In Buddhism all beings may strive for Buddhahood. Throughout the schools of Buddhism, it is taught that being born in the human realm is best for realizing full enlightenment, whereas being born as a god presents one with too much pleasure and too many distractions to provide any motivation for serious insight meditation. Doctrines of theosis have played an important role in Christian thought, and there are a number of theistic variations of Hinduism where a practitioner can strive to become the godhead (for example Vedanta), but from a Buddhist perspective, such attainment would be disadvantageous to the attainment of nirvana,since it may possibly be based on mental reification. Some forms of Buddhist meditation, however, share more similarities with the concept of henosis.
In Buddhism, one venerates Buddhas and sages for their virtues, sacrifices, and struggles for perfect enlightenment, and as teachers who are embodiments of the Dhamma.[86]
In Buddhism, this supreme victory of the human ability for perfect gnosis is celebrated in the concept of human saints known as Arahants which literally means "worthy of offerings" or "worthy of worship" because this sage overcomes all defilements and obtains perfect gnosis to obtain Nirvana.
Professor Perry Schmidt-Leukel comments on how some portrayals of the Buddha within Western understanding deprive him of certain 'divine' features, which are in fact found in the earlier scriptures and in certain Eastern contexts. Schmidt-Leukel writes:
What a difference between the presentation of the Buddha within the genuine context of religious veneration, as in [the Doi Suthep Thai] temple, and the image of the Buddha - currently so widespread in the West - according to which the Buddha was simply a human being, free from all divine features! Indeed this modern view does not at all correspond to the description of the Buddha in the classical Buddhist scriptures.[87]



জৈন মতে ঈশ্বরঃ

Jainism rejects the idea of a creator deity responsible for the manifestation, creation, or maintenance of this universe. According to Jain doctrine, the universe and its constituents (soul, matter, space, time, and principles of motion) have always existed. All the constituents and actions are governed by universal natural laws and an immaterial entity like God cannot create a material entity like the universe. Jainism offers an elaborate cosmology, including heavenly beings (devas), but these beings are not viewed as creators; they are subject to suffering and change like all other living beings, and must eventually die.
Jains define godliness as the inherent quality of any soul characterizing infinite bliss, infinite power, Perfect knowledge and Perfect peace. However, these qualities of a soul are subdued due to karmas of the soul. One who achieves this state of soul through right belief, right knowledge and right conduct can be termed as god. This perfection of soul is called Kaivalya or Bodhi. A god thus becomes a liberated soul – liberated of miseries, cycles of rebirth, world, karmas and finally liberated of body as well. This is called nirvana or moksha.
If godliness is defined as the state of having freed one's soul from karmas and the attainment of enlightenment/Nirvana and a god as one who exists in such a state, then those who have achieved such a state can be termed gods/Tirthankara. Thus, Rishabha was god/Tirthankara but he was not the only Tirthankara; there were many other Tirthankara. However, the quality of godliness is one and the same in all of them. Thus, Jainism can be defined as polytheist, monotheist, nontheist, transtheist or atheist, depending on one's definition of God.
Jainism does not teach the dependency on any supreme being for enlightenment. The Tirthankara is a guide and teacher who points the way to enlightenment, but the struggle for enlightenment is one's own. Moral rewards and sufferings are not the work of a divine being, but a result of an innate moral order in the cosmos; a self-regulating mechanism whereby the individual reaps the fruits of his own actions through the workings of the karmas.
Jains believe that to attain enlightenment and ultimately liberation from all karmic bondinghttp://cdncache-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png, one must practice the ethical principles not only in thought, but also in words (speech) and action. Such a practice through lifelong work towards oneself is called as observing the Mahavrata ("Great Vows").
Gods can be thus categorized into embodied gods also known as Tīrthankaras and Arihantas or ordinary Kevalin, and non-embodied formless gods who are called Siddhas. Jainism considers the devīs and devas to be souls who dwell in heavens owing to meritorious deeds in their past lives. These souls are in heavens for a fixed lifespan and even they have to undergo reincarnation as humans to achieve moksa.

Arihants


Arihants, also known as Kevalins, are gods in embodied states who ultimately become Siddhas, or liberated souls, at the time of their nirvana. An Arihant is a soul who has destroyed all passions, is totally unattached and without any desire and hence is able to destroy the four ghātiyā karmas and attain kevala jñāna, or omniscience. Such a soul still has a body and four aghātiyā karmas. An Arihant, at the end of his lifespan, destroys his remaining aghātiyā karma and becomes a Siddha.

Tīrthankaras

Tīrthankaras (also known as Jinas) are Arhatas who are teachers and revivers of the Jain philosophy. There are 24 Tīrthankaras in each time cycle; Mahāvīra was the 24th and last Tīrthankara of the current time cycle. Tīrthankaras are literally the ford makers who have shown the way across the ocean of rebirth and transmigration and hence have become a focus of reverence and worship amongst Jains. However it would be a mistake to regard the Tīrthankaras as gods analogous to the gods of Hindu pantheon despite the superficial resemblances in Jain and Hindu way of worship.[1] Tīrthankaras like Arhantas ultimately become Siddhas on liberation. Tīrthankaras, being liberated, are beyond any kind of transactions with the rest of the universe. They are not the beings who exercise any sort of creative activity or who have the capacity or ability to intervene in answers to prayers.

Siddhas


Ultimately all Arihantas and Tīrthankaras become Siddhas. A Siddha is a soul who is permanently liberated from the transmigratory cycle of birth and death. Such a soul, having realized its true self, is free from all the Karmas and embodiment. They are formless and dwell in Siddhashila (the realm of the liberated beings) at the apex of the universe in infinite bliss, infinite perception, infinite knowledge and infinite energy.

The Acāranga sūtra 1.197 describes Siddhas in this way:
The liberated soul is not long nor small nor round nor triangular nor quadrangular nor circular; it is not black nor blue nor red nor green nor white; neither of good nor bad smell; not bitter nor pungent nor astringent nor sweet; neither rough nor soft; neither heavy nor light; neither cold nor hot; neither harsh nor smooth; it is without body, without resurrection, without contact (of matter), it is not feminine nor masculine nor neuter. The siddha perceives and knows all, yet is beyond comparison. Its essence is without form; there is no condition of the unconditioned. It is not sound, not colour, not smell, not taste, not touch or anything of that kind. Thus I say.[2]
Siddhahood is the ultimate goal of all souls. There are infinite souls who have become Siddhas and infinite more who will attain this state of liberation. [d] According to Jainism, the Godhood is not a monopoly of some omnipotent and powerful being(s). All souls, with right perception, knowledge and conduct can achieve self-realisation and attain this state.[e] Once achieving this state of infinite bliss and having destroyed all desires, the soul is not concerned with the worldly matters and does not interfere in the working of universe, as any activity or desire to interfere will once again result in influx of karmas and thus loss of liberation.
Jains pray to these passionless Gods not for any favors or rewards but rather pray to the qualities of the God with the objective of destroying the karmas and achieving the Godhood. This is best understood by the term vandetadgunalabhdhaye – i.e. "we pray to the attributes of such Gods to acquire such attributes" [f][3]

Heavenly Beings


Jainism describes existence of śāsanadevatās and śāsanadevīs, the attendant Gods and Goddesses of Tīrthankaras, who create the samavasarana or the divine preaching assembly of a Tīrthankara. Such heavenly beings are classified as:-
  • Bhavanpatis – Gods dwelling in abodes
  • Vyantaras – Intermediary gods
  • Jyotiskas – Luminaries
  • Vaimānikas – Astral gods
The souls on account of accumulation of meritorious karmas reincarnate in heavens as demi-gods. Although their life span is quite long, after their merit karmas are exhausted, they once again have to reincarnate back into the realms of humans, animals or hells depending on their karmas. As these Gods themselves are not liberated, they have attachments and passions and hence not worthy of worship. Ācārya Hemacandra decries the worship of such Gods –
These Gods tainted with attachment and passion;
having women and weapons by their side, favour some and disfavour some;
such Gods should not be worshipped by those who desire emancipation”[4]
Worship of such gods is considered as mithyātva or wrong belief leading to bondage of karmas. However, many Jains are known to worship such gods for material gains.

Jain opposition to Creationism

Jain scriptures reject God as the creator of the universe. Ācārya Hemacandra in the 12th century put forth the Jain view of the universe in Yogaśāstra:[i]
This universe is not created nor sustained by anyone;
It is self-sustaining, without any base or support
Besides scriptural authority, Jains also resorted to syllogism and deductive reasoning to refute the creationist theories. Various views on divinity and the universe held by the vedics, sāmkhyas, mimimsas, Buddhists and other schools of thought were analysed, debated and repudiated by the various Jain Ācāryas. However, the most eloquent refutation of this view is provided by Ācārya Jinasena in Mahāpurāna: [j]
Some foolish men declare that creator made the world. The doctrine that the world was created is ill advised and should be rejected.
If God created the world, where was he before the creation? If you say he was transcendent then and needed no support, where is he now?
How could God have made this world without any raw material? If you say that he made this first, and then the world, you are faced with an endless regression.
If you declare that this raw material arose naturally you fall into another fallacy, For the whole universe might thus have been its own creator, and have arisen quite naturally.
If God created the world by an act of his own will, without any raw material, then it is just his will and nothing else — and who will believe this silly nonsense?
If he is ever perfect and complete, how could the will to create have arisen in him? If, on the other hand, he is not perfect, he could no more create the universe than a potter could.
If he is form-less, action-less and all-embracing, how could he have created the world? Such a soul, devoid of all modality, would have no desire to create anything.
If he is perfect, he does not strive for the three aims of man, so what advantage would he gain by creating the universe?
If you say that he created to no purpose because it was his nature to do so, then God is pointless. If he created in some kind of sport, it was the sport of a foolish child, leading to trouble.
If he created because of the karma of embodied beings [acquired in a previous creation] He is not the Almighty Lord, but subordinate to something else
If out of love for living beings and need of them he made the world, why did he not make creation wholly blissful free from misfortune?
If he were transcendent he would not create, for he would be free: Nor if involved in transmigration, for then he would not be almighty. Thus the doctrine that the world was created by God makes no sense at all,
And God commits great sin in slaying the children whom he himself created. If you say that he slays only to destroy evil beings, why did he create such beings in the first place?
Good men should combat the believer in divine creation, maddened by an evil doctrine. Know that the world is uncreated, as time itself is, without beginning or end, and is based on the principles, life and rest. Uncreated and indestructible, it endures under the compulsion of its own nature.
The Jaina position on God can be summed up in the words of Anne Vallely:
Jainism is the most difficult religion. We get no help from any gods, or from anyone. We just have to cleanse our souls. In fact other religions are easy, but they are not very ambitious. In all other religions when you are in difficulty, you can pray to God for help and maybe, God comes down to help. But Jainism is not a religion of coming down. In Jainism it is we who must go up. We only have to help ourselves. In Jainism we have to become God. That is the only thing.[5]


খৃষ্টান মতে ঈশ্বরঃ

God in Christianity is the eternal being who created and preserves the world. Christians believe God to be both transcendent (wholly independent of, and removed from, the material universe) and immanent (involved in the world).[1][2] Christian teachings of the immanence and involvement of God and his love for humanity exclude the belief that God is of the same substance as the created universe[3] but accept that God's divine Nature was hypostatically united to human nature in the person of Jesus Christ, in an event known as the Incarnation.
Early Christian views of God were expressed in the Pauline Epistles and the early[4] creeds, which proclaimed one God and the divinity of Jesus, almost in the same breath as in 1 Corinthians (8:5-6): "For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many 'gods' and many 'lords'), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live."[5][6][7] "Although the Judæo-Christian sect of the Ebionites protested against this apotheosis of Jesus,[8] the great mass of Gentile Christians accepted it."[9] This began to differentiate the Gentile Christian views of God from traditional Jewish teachings of the time.[5]
The theology of the attributes and nature of God has been discussed since the earliest days of Christianity, with Irenaeus writing in the 2nd century: "His greatness lacks nothing, but contains all things".[10] In the 8th century, John of Damascus listed eighteen attributes which remain widely accepted.[11] As time passed, theologians developed systematic lists of these attributes, some based on statements in the Bible (e.g., the Lord's Prayer, stating that the Father is in Heaven), others based on theological reasoning.[12][13] The Kingdom of God is a prominent phrase in the Synoptic Gospels and while there is near unanimous agreement among scholars that it represents a key element of the teachings of Jesus, there is little scholarly agreement on its exact interpretation.[14][15]
Although the New Testament does not have a formal doctrine of the Trinity as such, it does repeatedly speak of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in such a way as to "compel a trinitarian understanding of God." This never becomes a "tritheism." This does not imply three Gods.[16] Around the year 200, Tertullian formulated a version of the doctrine of the Trinity which clearly affirmed the divinity of Jesus and came close to the later definitive form produced by the Ecumenical Council of 381.[17][18] The doctrine of the Trinity can be summed up as: "The One God exists in Three Persons and One Substance, as God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit."[19][20] Trinitarians, who form the large majority of Christians, hold it as a core tenet of their faith.[21][22] Nontrinitarian denominations define the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in a number of different ways.[23]

 

 

Development of the theology of God


Early Christian views of God (before the gospels were written) are reflected in Apostle Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians (8:5-6), written ca. AD 53-54, i.e., about twenty years after the crucifixion of Jesus:[5]
for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.
Apart from asserting that there is but one God, Paul's statement (which is likely based on pre-Pauline confessions) includes a number of other significant elements: he distinguishes Christian belief from the Jewish background of the time by referring to Jesus and the Father almost in the same breath, and by conferring on Jesus the title of divine honor "Lord", as well as calling him Christ.[5][6] [7]
In the Book of Acts (17:24-27) during the Areopagus sermon given by Paul, he further characterizes the early Christian understanding:[24]
The God that made the world and all things therein, he, being Lord of heaven and earth
and reflects on the relationship between God and Christians:[24]
that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us for in him we live.
The Pauline Epistles also include a number of references to the Holy Spirit, with the theme which appears in 1 Thessalonians (4:8) "…God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit" appearing throughout his epistles.[25] In John 14:26 Jesus also refers to "the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name".[26]
By the end of the 1st century, Clement of Rome had repeatedly referred to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and linked the Father to creation, 1 Clement 19.2 stating: "let us look steadfastly to the Father and creator of the universe".[27] By the middle of the 2nd century, in Against Heresies Irenaeus had emphasized (Book 4, chapter 5) that the Creator is the "one and only God" and the "maker of heaven and earth".[27] These preceded the formal presentation of the concept of Trinity by Tertullian early in the 3rd century.[27]
The period from late 2nd century to the beginning of the 4th century (approximately 180-313) is generally called the "epoch of the Great Church" and also the Ante-Nicene Period and witnessed significant theological development, and the consolidation and formalization of a number of Christian teachings.[28]
From the 2nd century onwards, western creeds started with an affirmation of belief in "God the Father (Almighty)" and the primary reference of this phrase was to "God in his capacity as Father and creator of the universe".[29] This did not exclude either the fact the "eternal father of the universe was also the Father of Jesus the Christ" or that he had even "vouchsafed to adopt [the believer] as his son by grace".[29] Eastern creeds (those we know come from a later date) began with an affirmation of faith in "one God" and almost always expanded this by adding "the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible" or words to that effect.[29]
As time passed, theologians and philosophers developed more precise understandings of the nature of God and began to produce systematic lists of his attributes (i.e., qualities or characteristics). These varied in detail, but traditionally the attributes fell into two groups, those based on negation (God is impassible) and those positively based on eminence (God is infinitely good).[13] Ian Ramsey suggested that there are three groups and that some attributes such as simplicity and perfection have a different logical dynamic which from such attributes as infinite goodness since there are relative forms of the latter but not of the former.[30]
Throughout the Christian development of ideas about God, the Bible “has been, both in theory and in fact, the dominant influence” in the Western world.[31]

Name


In Christian theology the name of God has always had much deeper meaning and significance than being just a label or designator. It is not a human invention, but has divine origin and is based on divine revelation.[32][33] Respect for the name of God is one of the Ten Commandments, which Christians teachings view not simply an avoidance of the improper use of the name of God, but as a directive to exalt it, through both pious deeds and praise.[34] This is reflected in the first petition in the Lord's Prayer addressed to God the Father: "Hallowed be thy Name".[35]
Going back to the Church Fathers, the name of God has been seen as a representation of the entire system of "divine truth" revealed to the faithful "that believe on his name" as in John 1:12 or "walk in the name of the Lord our God" in Micah 4:5.[36][37] In Revelation 3:12 those who bear the name of God are destined for Heaven. John 17:6 presents the teachings of Jesus as the manifestation of the name of God to his disciples.[36]
John 12:27 presents the sacrifice of Jesus the Lamb of God, and the ensuing salvation delivered through it as the glorification of the name of God, with the voice from Heaven confirming Jesus' petition ("Father, glorify thy name") by saying: "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again" referring to the Baptism and crucifixion of Jesus.[38]
The Bible usually uses the name of God in the singular (e.g., Ex. 20:7 or Ps. 8:1), generally using the terms in a very general sense rather than referring to any special designation of God.[39] However, general references to the name of God may branch to other special forms which express his multifaceted attributes.[39] Scripture presents many references to the names for God, but the key names in the Old Testament are: God the High and Exalted One, El-Shaddai and Jehovah. In the New Testament Theos, Kyrios and Pater (πατήρ i.e., Father in Greek) are the essential names.[39]

Attributes and nature

The theological underpinnings of the attributes and nature of God have been discussed since the earliest days of Christianity. In the 2nd century Irenaeus addressed the issue and expounded on some attributes, e.g., in his Against Heresis (Book IV, Chapter 19) stated: "His greatness lacks nothing, but contains all things".[10] Irenaeus based his attributes on three sources: Scripture, prevailing mysticism and popular piety.[10] Today, some of the attributes associated with God continue to be based on statements in the Bible, e.g., the Lord's Prayer states that the Father is in Heaven, while other attributes are derived by theological reasoning.[12]
In the 8th century, John of Damascus listed eighteen attributes for God in his An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (Book 1, Chapter 8).[11] These eighteen attributes were divided into four groups based on time (e.g., being everlasting), space (e.g., being boundless), matter or quality and the list continues to be influential to date, partially appearing in some form in various modern formulations.[11] In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas focused on a shorter list of just eight attributes, namely: simplicity, perfection, goodness, incomprehensibility, omnipresence, immutability, eternity and oneness.[11] Other formulations include the 1251 list of the Fourth Lateran Council which was then adopted at Vatican I in 1870 and the Westminster Shorter Catechism in the 17th century.[11]
Two attributes of God that place him above the world, yet acknowledge his involvement in the world, are transcendence and immanence.[1][2] Transcendence means that God is eternal and infinite, not controlled by the created world and beyond human events. Immanence means that God is involved in the world, and Christian teachings have long acknowledged his attention to human affairs.[1][2] However, unlike pantheistic religions, in Christianity God's being is not of the substance of the created universe.[3]
Traditionally, some theologians such as Louis Berkhof distinguish between the communicable attributes (those that human beings can also have) and the incommunicable attributes (those that belong to God alone).[40] However, others such as Donald Macleod hold that all the suggested classifications are artificial and without basis.[41]
There is a general agreement among theologians that it would be a mistake to conceive of the essence of God existing by itself and independently of the attributes or of the attributes being an additional characteristic of the Divine Being. They are essential qualities which exist permanently in his very Being and are co-existent with it. Any alteration in them would imply an alteration in the essential being of God.[42]
Hick suggests that when listing the attributes of God, the starting point should be his self-existence ("aseity") which implies that his eternal and unconditioned nature. Hick goes on to consider the following additional attributes: Creator being the source of all that composes his creation ("creatio ex nihilo") and the sustainer of what he has brought into being; Personal; Loving, Good; and Holy.[43] Berkhof also starts with self-existence but moves on to immutability; infinity, which implies perfection eternity and omnipresence; unity. He then analyses a series of intellectual attributes: knowledge-omniscience; wisdom; veracity and then, the moral attributes of goodness (including love, grace, mercy and patience); holiness and righteousness before dealing finally with his sovereignty.[42]

Kingdom of God and eschatology

Kingship and Kingdom


The Christian characterization of the relationship between God and humanity involves the notion of the "Kingship of God", whose origins go back to the Old Testament, and may be seen as a consequence of the creation of the world by God.[14][44] The "enthronement psalms" (Psalms 45, 93, 96, 97-99) provide a background for this view with the exclamation "The Lord is King".[14] However, in later Judaism a more "national" view was assigned to God's Kingship in which the awaited Messiah may be seen as a liberator and the founder of a new state of Israel.[45]
The term "Kingdom of God" does not appear in the Old Testament, although "his Kingdom" and "your Kingdom" are used in some cases when referring to God.[46] However, the Kingdom of God (the Matthean equivalent being "Kingdom of Heaven") is a prominent phrase in the Synoptic Gospels (appearing 75 times), and there is near unanimous agreement among scholars that it represents a key element of the teachings of Jesus.[14][15] Yet, R. T. France points out that while the concept of "Kingdom of God" has an intuitive meaning to lay Christians, there is hardly any agreement among scholars about its meaning in the New Testament.[15] Some scholars see it as a Christian lifestyle, some as a method of world evangelization, some as the rediscovery of charismatic gifts, others relate it to no present or future situation, but the world to come.[15] France states that the phrase Kingdom of God is often interpreted in many ways to fit the theological agenda of those interpreting it.[15]

End times

Interpretations of the term Kingdom of God have given rise to wide ranging eschatological debates among scholars with diverging views, yet no consensus has emerged among scholars.[47][48][49] From Augustine to the Reformation the arrival of the Kingdom had been identified with the formation of the Christian Church, but this view was later abandoned and by the beginning of the 20th century the apocalyptic interpretation of the Kingdom had gained ground.[47][49][50] In this view (also called the "consistent eschatology") the Kingdom of God did not start in the 1st century, but is a future apocalyptic event that is yet to take place.[47]

By the middle of the 20th century realized eschatology which in contrast viewed the Kingdom as non-apocalyptic but as the manifestation of divine sovereignty over the world (realized by the ministry of Jesus) had gathered a scholarly following.[47] In this view the Kingdom is held to be available in the present.[48] The competing approach of Inaugurated eschatology was later introduced as the "already and not yet" interpretation.[47] In this view the Kingdom has already started, but awaits full disclosure at a future point.[48] These diverging interpretations have since given rise to a good number of variants, with various scholars proposing new eschatological models that borrow elements from these.[47][48]

Judgement

Hebrews 12:23 refers to "God the Judge of all" and the notion that all humans will eventually "be judged" is an essential element of Christian teachings.[51] A number of New Testament passages (e.g., John 5:22 and Acts 10:42) and later credal confessions indicate that the task of judgement is assigned to Jesus.[51][52] John 5:22 states that "neither does the Father judge any man, but he has given all judgment unto the Son".[51] Acts 10:42 refers to the resurrected Jesus as: "he who is ordained of God to be the Judge of the living and the dead."[51] The role played by Jesus in the judgement of God is emphasized in the most widely used Christian confessions, with the Nicene Creed stating that Jesus "sits on the right hand of the Father; shall come again, with glory, to judge the living and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end".[53] The Apostle's Creed includes a similar confession.[53]
A number of gospel passages warn against sin and suggest a path of righteousness to avoid the judgement of God.[54] For instance, the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:22-26 teaches the avoidance of sin and the Parables of the Kingdom (Matthew 13:49) state that at the moment of judgement the angels will "sever the wicked from among the righteous and shall cast them into the furnace of fire".[54] Christians can thus enjoy forgiveness that lifts them from the judgement of God by following the teachings of Jesus and through a personal fellowship with him.[54]

Trinitarianism

History and foundation

In early Christianity, the concept of salvation was closely related to the invocation of the "Father, Son and Holy Spirit".[55][56] Since the 1st century, Christians have called upon God with the name "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" in prayer, baptism, communion, exorcism, hymn-singing, preaching, confession, absolution and benediction.[55][56] This is reflected in the saying: "Before there was a 'doctrine' of the Trinity, Christian prayer invoked the Holy Trinity".[55]

The earliest known depiction of the Trinity, Dogmatic Sarcophagus, 350 AD[57] Vatican Museums.
The term "Trinity" does not explicitly appear in the Bible, but Trinitarians believe the concept as later developed is consistent with biblical teachings.[21][22] The New Testament includes a number of the usages of the three-fold liturgical and doxological formula, e.g., 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 stating: "he that establisheth us with you in Christ, and anointed us, is God; who also sealed us, and gave [us] the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts".[21][58] Christ receiving "authority and co-equal divinity" is mentioned in Matthew 28:18: "All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth" as well as John 3:35, John 13:3, John 17:1.[58] And the Spirit being both "of God" and "of Christ" appears in Galatians 4:6, the Book of Acts (16:7), John 15:26 and Romans 8:14-17.[58]
The general concept was expressed in early writings from the beginning of the 2nd century forward, with Irenaeus writing in his Against Heresies (Book I Chapter X):[55]
"The Church ... believes in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit".
Around AD 213 in Adversus Praxeas (chapter 3) Tertullian provided a formal representation of the concept of the Trinity, i.e., that God exists as one "substance" but three "Persons": The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.[59][60] In defense of the coherence of the Trinity Tertullian wrote (Adversus Praxeas 3): "The Unity which derives the Trinity out of its own self is so far from being destroyed, that it is actually supported by it."
Tertullian also discussed how the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.[59]
The First Council of Nicaea in AD 325 and later the First Council of Constantinople in AD 381 defined the dogma "in its simplest outlines in the face of pressing heresies" and the version used thereafter dates to 381.[20] In the 5th century, in the west, Saint Augustine expanded on the theological development in his On the Trinity, while the major development in the east was due to John of Damascus in the 8th century.[61] The theology eventually reached its classical form in the writings of Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century.[61][62]
Bernhard Lohse states that the doctrine of the Trinity does not go back to non-Christian sources such as Plato or Hinduism and that all attempts at suggesting such connections have floundered.[63] The majority of Christians are now Trinitarian and regard belief in the Trinity as a test of true orthodoxy of belief.[55]

The doctrine

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b3/Shield-Trinity-Scutum-Fidei-English.svg/220px-Shield-Trinity-Scutum-Fidei-English.svg.png
A diagram of the Trinity consisting of God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit
The doctrine of the Trinity is considered by most Christians to be a core tenet of their faith.[19][20] It can be summed up as:[19]
"The One God exists in Three Persons and One Substance."
Strictly speaking, the doctrine is a mystery that can "neither be known by unaided human reason", nor "cogently demonstrated by reason after it has been revealed"; even so "it is not contrary to reason" being "not incompatible with the principles of rational thought".[62]
The doctrine was expressed at length in the 4th century Athanasian Creed of which the following is an extract:[20][21]
We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;
Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.
For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit.
But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, is all one; the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal.
Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit.
To Trinitarian Christians (which include Catholic Christians, Eastern Orthodox Christians, and most Protestant denominations), God the Father is not at all a separate god from the Son (of whom Jesus is the incarnation) and the Holy Spirit, the other Hypostases of the Christian Godhead.[64]
The 20th century witnessed an increased theological focus on the doctrine of the Trinity, partly due to the efforts of Karl Barth in his fourteen volume Church Dogmatics.[65] This theological focus relates the revelation of the Word of God to the Trinity, and argues that the doctrine of Trinity is what distinguishes the "Christian concept of God" from all other religions.[65][66]

The Father

Depiction of God the Father (detail) offering the right hand throne to Christ, Pieter de Grebber, 1654.
The emergence of Trinitarian theology of God the Father in early Christianity was based on two key ideas: first the shared identity of the Yahweh of the Old Testament and the God of Jesus in the New Testament, and then the self-distinction and yet the unity between Jesus and his Father.[67][68] An example of the unity of Son and Father is Matthew 11:27: "No one knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son", asserting the mutual knowledge of Father and Son.[69]
The concept of fatherhood of God does appear in the Old Testament, but is not a major theme.[67][70] While the view of God as the Father is used in the Old Testament, it only became a focus in the New Testament, as Jesus frequently referred to it.[67][70] This is manifested in the Lord's prayer which combines the earthly needs of daily bread with the reciprocal concept of forgiveness.[70] And Jesus' emphasis on his special relationship with the Father highlights the importance of the distinct yet unified natures of Jesus and the Father, building to the unity of Father and Son in the Trinity.[70]
The paternal view of God as the Father extends beyond Jesus to his disciples, and the entire Church, as reflected in the petitions Jesus submitted to the Father for his followers at the end of the Farewell Discourse, the night before his crucifixion.[71] Instances of this in the Farewell Discourse are John 14:20 as Jesus addresses the disciples: "I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you" and in John 17:22 as he prays to the Father: "I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one."[72]
In Trinitarian theology, God the Father is the "arche" or "principium" (beginning), the "source" or "origin" of both the Son and the Holy Spirit, and is considered the eternal source of the Godhead.[73] The Father is the one who eternally begets the Son, and the Father eternally breathes the Holy Spirit. The Son is eternally born from God the Father, and the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father,[27][73] and, in the Western tradition, the Son.
Yet, notwithstanding this difference as to origin, Father is one with, co-equal to, co-eternal, and con-substantial with the Son and the Holy Spirit, each Person being the one eternal God and in no way separated, who is the creator: all alike are uncreated and omnipotent.[27] Thus, the Divine Unity consists of God the Father, with his Son and his Spirit distinct from God the Father and yet perfectly united together in him.[27] Because of this, the Trinity is beyond reason and can only be known by revelation.[74][75]
Trinitarians believe that God the Father is not pantheistic, in that he not viewed as identical to the universe, but exists outside of creation, as its Creator.[76][77] He is viewed as a loving and caring God, a Heavenly Father who is active both in the world and in people's lives.[76][77] He created all things visible and invisible in love and wisdom, and man for his own sake.[76][77][78]

The Son

Since early Christianity, a number of titles have been attributed to Jesus, including, Messiah (Christ) and the Son of God.[79][80] Theologically, these are different attributions: Messiah refers to his fulfilling the expected Old Testament prophecies, while Son of God refers to a paternal relationship.[79][80] God the Son is distinct from both Messiah and Son of God and its theology as part of the doctrine of the Trinity was formalized well over a century after those.[80][81][82]
According to the Gospels, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born from the Virgin Mary.[83] The Biblical accounts of Jesus' ministry include: his baptism, miracles, preaching, teaching, and healing. The narrative of the gospels place significant emphasis on the death of Jesus, devoting about one third of the text to just seven days, namely the last week of the life of Jesus in Jerusalem.[84] The core Christian belief is that through the death and resurrection of Jesus, sinful humans can be reconciled to God and thereby are offered salvation and the promise of eternal life.[85] The belief in the redemptive nature of Jesus' death predates the Pauline letters and goes back to the earliest days of Christianity and the Jerusalem church.[86] The Nicene Creed's statement that "for our sake he was crucified" is a reflection of this core belief.[85]
The two Christological concerns as to how Jesus could be truly God while preserving faith in the existence of one God and how the human and the divine could be combined in one person were fundamental concerns from well before the First Council of Nicaea (325).[87] However, the theology of "God the Son" was eventually reflected in the statement of the Nicene Creed in the 4th century.[88]
The Chalcedonian Creed of 451, accepted by the majority of Christians, holds that Jesus is God incarnate and "true God and true man" (or both fully divine and fully human). Jesus, having become fully human in all respects, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, yet he did not sin. As fully God, he defeated death and rose to life again.[89] The Third Council of Constantinople in 680 then held that both divine and human wills exist in Jesus, with the divine will having precedence, leading and guiding the human will.[90]
In mainstream Christianity, Jesus Christ as God the Son is the second Person of the Holy Trinity, due to his eternal relation to the first Person (God as Father).[91] He is considered coequal with the Father and Holy Spirit and is all God and all human: the Son of God as to his divine nature, while as to his human nature he is from the lineage of David.[83][91][92][93]
More recently, discussions of the theological issues related to God the Son and its role in the Trinity were addressed in the 20th century in the context of a "Trinity-based" perspective on divine revelation.[94][95]

The Holy Spirit

In mainstream Christianity, the Holy Spirit is one of the three divine persons of the Holy Trinity who make up the single substance of God; that is, the Spirit is considered to act in concert with and share an essential nature with God the Father and God the Son (Jesus).[96][97] The New Testament has much to say about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's presence was especially felt following the ascension of Christ, although not to the exclusion of an early presence as attested by the Old Testament and throughout the New Testament.[16]:p.39 The Christian theology of the Holy Spirit, or pneumatology, was the last piece of Trinitarian theology to be fully explored and developed, and there is thus greater theological diversity among Christian understandings of the Spirit than there is among understandings of the Son and the Father.[96][97] Within Trinitarian theology, the Holy Spirit is usually referred to as the "Third Person" of the triune God—with the Father being the First Person and the Son the Second Person.[97]
The sacredness of the Holy Spirit is affirmed in all three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 12:30-32, Mark 3:28-30 and Luke 12:8-10) which proclaim that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the unforgivable sin.[98] The participation of the Holy Spirit in the tripartite nature of conversion is apparent in Jesus' final post-Resurrection instruction to his disciples at the end of the Gospel of Matthew (28:19):[99] "make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit".[100] The Holy Spirit plays a key role in the Pauline epistles, to the point that their pneumatology is almost inseparable from their Christology.[101] In the Johannine writings, three separate terms, namely Holy Spirit, Spirit of Truth and Paraclete are used.[102]
Reflecting the Annunciation in Luke 1:35, the early Apostles' Creed states that Jesus was "conceived by the Holy Spirit".[103] The Nicene Creed refers to the Holy Spirit as "the Lord and Giver of Life" who with the Father and the Son together is "worshiped and glorified".[104] While in the act of the Incarnation, God the Son became manifest as the Son of God, the same did not take place for God the Holy Spirit which remained unrevealed.[105] Yet, as in 1 Corinthians 6:19 God the Spirit continues to dwell in bodies of the faithful.[105][106]
In Christian theology Holy Spirit is believed to perform specific divine functions in the life of the Christian or the church. The action of the Holy Spirit is seen as an essential part of the bringing of the person to the Christian faith.[107] The new believer is "born again of the Spirit".[108]
The Holy Spirit enables Christian life by dwelling in the individual believers and enables them to live a righteous and faithful life.[107] He acts as Comforter or Paraclete, one who intercedes, or supports or acts as an advocate, particularly in times of trial. He acts to convince unredeemed persons both of the sinfulness of their actions and thoughts, and of their moral standing as sinners before God.[109] The Holy Spirit both inspired the writing of the scriptures and now interprets them to the Christian and/or church.[110]

Trinitarian differences

In Eastern Orthodox theology, essence of God being that which is beyond human comprehension and can not be defined and or approached by human understanding.[111] Roman Catholic teachings are somewhat similar in considering the mysteries of the Trinity as being beyond human reason.[75] However, differences exist in that in Roman Catholic theology and teaching, God the Father is the eternal source of the Son (begot the Son by an eternal generation) and of the Holy Spirit (by an eternal procession from the Father and the Son) and the one who breaths the Holy Spirit with and through the Son, but the Eastern Orthodox consider the Spirit to proceed from the Father alone.[112]
Most Protestant denominations and other mainstream traditions arising since the Reformation, hold general Trinitarian beliefs and theology regarding God the Father similar to that of Roman Catholicism. This includes churches arising from Anglicanism, Baptist, Methodism, Lutheranism and Presbyterianism. Likewise, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church describes the Trinity as "the central dogma of Christian theology".[113] However, a precise representative view of Protestant Trinitarian theology regarding "God the Father", etc., is more difficult to provide, given the diverse and less centralized nature of the various Protestant churches.[113]

Nontrinitarianism

Some Christian traditions reject the doctrine of the Trinity, and are called nontrinitarian.[114] These groups differ from one another in their views, variously depicting Jesus as a divine being second only to God the Father, Yahweh of the Old Testament in human form, God (but not eternally God), prophet, or simply a holy man.[114] Some broad definitions of Protestantism include these groups within Protestantism, but most definitions do not.[115]
Nontrinitarianism goes back to the early centuries of Christian history and groups such as the Arians, Ebionites, Gnostics, and others.[23] These nontrinatarian views were rejected by many bishops such as Irenaeus and subsequently by the Ecumenical Councils. The Nicene Creed raised the issue of the relationship between Jesus' divine and human natures.[23] Nontrinitarianism was rare among Christians for many centuries, and those rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity faced hostility from other Christians, but the 19th century saw the establishment of a number of groups in North America and elsewhere.[115]
In Jehovah's Witness theology, only God the Father is the one true and almighty God, even over his Son Jesus Christ. While the Witnesses acknowledge Christ's pre-existence, perfection, and unique "Sonship" with God the Father, and believe that Christ had an essential role in creation and redemption, and is the Messiah, they believe that only the Father is without beginning.[116]
In the theology of God in Mormonism, the most prominent conception of God is the Godhead, a divine council of three distinct beings: Elohim (the Father), Jehovah (the Son, or Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. The Father and Son are considered to have perfected, material bodies, while the Holy Spirit has a body of spirit. Mormonism recognize the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but believe they are distinct beings, united not in substance but in will and purpose, and they are each omniscient, omnipotent, and omni-benevolent.[117]
Other groups include Oneness Pentecostals, Christadelphians, Christian Scientists, and The New Church.


কিছু কিছু রাজনৈতিক পণ্ডিতগীতাকে ভারতবর্ষের জাতীয় গ্রন্থের মর্যাদা দিতে চাইছেন এবং তারা এর পিছনে যে যুক্তি গুলি বানাচ্ছেন তা হলঃ

) ভারতবর্ষের মাননীয় প্রধানমন্ত্রী নরেন্দ্র মোদী যেহেতু মার্কিন প্রেসিডেন্ট ওবামা কে “গীতা” উপহার দিয়েছেন তাই “গীতা” ভারতবর্ষের জাতীয় গ্রন্থ;
২) কার্বন ডেটিং পদ্ধতিতে প্রমাণ হয়েছে “গীতা”র বয়স ৫০০০ বছর;

১ নং যুক্তি মানতে হলে এটা মেনে নিতে হয় যে মার্কিন প্রেসিডেন্টকে যা কিছু উপহার দেওয়া হবে তাই ভারতবর্ষের জাতীয় প্রতীক। সে ক্ষেত্রে সমস্যা একটাই - মার্কিন প্রেসিডেন্ট ভারত সফরে আসার পর প্রধান মন্ত্রী তাকে উত্তরীয় পড়িয়ে স্বাগত জানালে “উত্তরীয়” হবে ভারতের জাতীয় পোশাক, চন্দনের টিপ পড়ালে তা হবে জাতীয় রূপসজ্জা (নাকি জাতীয় ফোঁটা), গলার মালা হবে জাতীয় মালা, (মালার ফুলগুলি সব জাতীয় ফুল), যে ফুলের স্তবক তার হাতে তুলে দেওয়া হবে সেই ফুলগুলিও ভারতের জাতীয় ফুল,  যে যে মূর্তি যেমন গণেশ, শিব, সরস্বতী ইত্যাদি তার হাতে তুলে দেওয়া হবে সেটি  ভারতের জাতীয় দেবতা / মূর্তি (একটি দেশের কত গুলি জাতীয় দেবতা / মূর্তি !) যে খাবার তিনি খাবেন সেটি জাতীয় খাবার, যে টয়লেটে যাবেন সেটি জাতীয় টয়লেট, ইত্যাদি এবং ইত্যাদি ইত্যাদিএকটু চিন্তা করে দেখবেন – এত জাতীয় সামলানো যাবে তো ?

২ নং যুক্তি নিয়ে বলতে গেলে বলতে হয় কোন বস্তুর প্রাচীনত্ব কার্বন ডেটিং পদ্ধতিতে প্রমাণ করা অবশ্যই যায় কিন্ত তার জন্য বস্তটির অস্তিত্ব থাকতে হয়। তা হলে ওই বিশেষ গ্রন্থটি কোথায়, কার কাছে, কি ভাবে রাখা আছে ? কোন একটি বিশেষ গ্রন্থের একটি কপির বয়স যদি ১০০ বছর বা তার বেশী হয় তাহলে তাকে ANTIQUE বলা হয়। সে ক্ষেত্রে ৫০০০ বছরের পুরানো গ্রন্থটি অবশ্যই ANTIQUE এবং তার উপযুক্ত সংরক্ষণের ব্যবস্থা করা উচিত। গ্রন্থটি কার কাছে আছে এবং কিভাবে আছে ? গ্রন্থটি অবিলম্বে সাংসদদের দেখানো হোক। গ্রন্থটি কোন কাগজের উপর কি ধরণের কালিতে লেখা হয়েছিল – কি ভাবে তার বাঁধাই করা হয়েছে, তার ভাষা কি ছিল (কারণ ভাষার বিবর্তনের ইতিহাস এতে সমৃদ্ধ হবে – ভাষাতত্ববিদদের কাছে এর গুরুত্ব অপরিসীম) – তাই এ সম্পর্কিত তথ্য জন সমক্ষে আসা উচিৎ। এ নিয়ে আরও কিছু প্রশ্ন আছে যথাঃ

১) কৃষ্ণ কুরুক্ষেত্রে অর্জুনকে যা উপদেশ দিলেন  তাই গীতা – ঠিক তো ? তা হলে গীতার রচয়িতা কে ? কৃষ্ণ তো মুখে বললেন – তিনিই কি লিখলেন ? মেনে নেওয়া যায় কি – লড়াইয়ের ময়দানে বসে একজন লিখে যাচ্ছেন ও পড়ে শোনাচ্ছেন ! অনুলেখক যদি কেউ থাকেন তিনি কে ?
২) গীতা যদি সবচেয়ে প্রাচীন গ্রন্থ হয় তাহলে বেদ – উপনিষদ এ গুলো কি গ্রন্থ নয় ? যদি “হ্যাঁ” হয় তাহলে এদের রচনাকাল কি গীতা র পরে ? যদি “না” হয় তা হলে গীতা প্রাচীনতম গ্রন্থের মর্যাদা পায় কি করে ?
৩) এছাড়া “গীতা” হল একটি মহাকাব্যের অংশ বিশেষ। একটি অংশ কি করে একটি সম্পূর্ণ গ্রন্থের মর্যাদা পায় ?

আশা করা যায় “গীতা”বিদ রা উপযুক্ত খিস্তি সহযোগে আমার মনের অন্ধকার দূর করবেন। তাদের কেউ কেউ আমাকে “ভাম” বলবেন, কেউ বা কোন মৌলানা আমাকে এ সব শেখাল জানতে চাইবেন, কেউ উপদেশ দেবেন নিজের ধর্মটা ভালো করে জানার, কেউ বা পাকিস্থান / আফগানিস্থানে পাঠিয়ে দিতে চাইবেন, কেউ আমাকে _রামজাদা বলবেন, কেউ বা ছেলে ঢুকিয়ে রেপ করতেও চাইবেন। আপনারা সব্বাই স্বাগত। এদের মধ্যে নিশ্চয়ই একজন – দুজন কে পাব যারা পড়াশোনা করে যুক্তি দিয়ে লিখবেন। তাঁদের জন্যই আমার এই পোষ্ট। আর যারা খিস্তি মারবেন তারা নিজের পরিচয় নিজেরাই প্রকাশ করবেন – তাঁদের আগাম অভিনন্দন নিজের পরিচয় প্রকাশের জন্য।



@ Pritam Saha @ Arijit Pal আমার প্রশ্ন গুলোর সাথে আবদুল কালাম বা আপনি বা বারাক ওবামার গীতা পড়ার সম্পর্ক কোথায় একটু বুঝিয়ে দিন দেখি ? আমি যা প্রশ্ন করেছি তার যুক্তি দিয়ে উত্তর দিন না হলে এরকম অপ্রাসঙ্গিক কথা লিখে সময় নষ্ট করবেন না একই কথা @ Barun Pathak সম্পর্কেও বলছি। তার সাথে আরও একটা কথা আমার কাছে হিন্দু, মুসলিম, খৃষ্টান, মার্ক্স যে কোন মৌলবাদ সমান বিপদজনক। যে কোন দর্শনকে জানতে হলে পড়তে হয় আর পড়লে মৌলবাদ আসে না। একথা স্বীকার করতে আমার কোন দ্বিধা নেই যে হিন্দু দর্শন (ধর্ম নয়) পৃথিবীর অন্যতম সেরা দর্শন। রামায়ণ ও মহাভারতের মাধ্যমে তৎকালীন সময়ের সামাজিক - অর্থনৈতিক - রাজনৈতিক পরিস্থিতি জানা যায় যেটা ইলিয়াড বা ওডিসি পড়ে জানা যায় না। কিন্ত তার সাথে গীতা কে ভারতের জাতীয় ধর্মগ্রন্থ করার কোন অর্থ আছে কি ?

@ Shubham Karmakar @ Dëbāíñà Çhâkrâbørty আশা করি, আপনারা আপনাদের জন্মের আগে কি ছিলেন ও কোথায় ছিলেন সেটা জানেন এবং মৃত্যুর পরে কোথায় যাবেন বা কি হবেন তাও জানেন। আমি জানি না। আমি শুধু এইটুকু জানি যে প্রতিটি জীবন এক অন্ধকার থেকে এসে অন্য অন্ধকারে মিলিয়ে যায়মাঝখানের চেতন জগতে সে তার কাজটুকু করে যায়। এ শিক্ষা আমি হিন্দু দর্শন (মনে রাখবেন ধর্ম নয়) থেকেই পেয়েছি। গীতা গীতা নিয়ে না চেঁচিয়ে (মনে হয় গীতা আপনার প্রেমিকা বা বোন) একটু পড়ুন আমার কথার সমর্থনে যুক্তি গীতা র শ্লোকেই পাবেন। সেই অর্থে এই চেতন জগতে আমরা সবাই "বহিরাগত" আমরা স্বীকার করি বা না করি ! গীতা বলছে "তুমি আমার শরীর কে ধবংস করতে পার কিন্ত আমার আত্মাকে নয়" অর্থাৎ মানুষের শরীর কালের নিয়মে ধ্বংসপ্রাপ্ত হয় কিন্ত তার চিন্তাধারা তার দর্শন হয় না। এ কথা কে অস্বীকার করব কি করে ? আমি যা লিখছি, গীতা ই আমাকে শিখিয়েছে। ফলে জানুন ও পড়ুন। তারপর মন্তব্য লিখুন। জানি আমার এই কথায় আপনাদের কিছু যাবে আসবে না, তবুও আমার কাছে হিন্দু, মুসলিম, খৃষ্টান, মার্ক্স যে কোন মৌলবাদ সমান বিপদজনক। যে কোন দর্শনকে জানতে হলে পড়তে হয় আর পড়লে মৌলবাদ আসে না। একথা স্বীকার করতে আমার কোন দ্বিধা নেই যে হিন্দু দর্শন (ধর্ম নয়) পৃথিবীর অন্যতম সেরা দর্শন। রামায়ণ ও মহাভারতের মাধ্যমে তৎকালীন সময়ের সামাজিক - অর্থনৈতিক - রাজনৈতিক পরিস্থিতি জানা যায় যেটা ইলিয়াড বা ওডিসি পড়ে জানা যায় না। কিন্ত তার সাথে গীতা কে ভারতের জাতীয় ধর্মগ্রন্থ করার কোন অর্থ আছে কি ? আর আমার লেখায় কোথায় আমি গীতার অস্তিত্ব নিয়ে সন্দেহ প্রকাশ করেছি ? তাহলে তো আমাকে বেদ নিয়ে সন্দেহ প্রকাশ করতে হয় যা রচিত হয়েছিল মুখে মুখে। আমার বক্তব্য একটি বিশেষ কপির অস্তিত্ব নিয়ে যার কার্বন ডেটিং করা হয়েছে বলে দাবী করা হচ্ছে।

ধৈর্য ধরে পুরোটা পড়ুন। "Gita 5000 years er purono hok ba 50000000 years... Tar bani ki change hoyeche...khondate parben? Na parle boro boro kotha bolben na! Ar khondate parle gita niye research korun." রামায়ণ ও মহাভারতের কটি রূপ আছে জানেন ? কম পক্ষে ১০০ টি। গীতার কত ভাষ্য আছে তা গুনে বলা যায় না - WIKIPEDIA কেন কোথাও সম্পূর্ণ তথ্য নেই। ফলে প্রলাপ আমি নই আপনি বকছেন। আপনি আমার মূল প্রশ্নে আসুন। গীতা এবং তার বক্তব্য নিয়ে আমার কোন কথা নেই কারণ শুধু ভারতের নয় মানবিক জীবন দর্শনের একটি অংশ ধরা আছে গীতা র মধ্যে। সারা জীবন ধরে পড়লেও আমি গীতার সম্পূর্ণ অর্থ বুঝে উঠতে পারব না এমনই গভীর সে দর্শন। আর হিন্দু দর্শন - ্রাম কৃষ্ণ দেব, সৈয়দ মুজতবা আলি, ম্যাক্স মুলার রম্যা রল্যা, রবীন্দ্রনাথ এমনকি আইনস্তাইন যে দর্শনের তল খুঁজে পেলেন না তার তল আমার মত একজন অকিঞ্চিৎকর মানুষ খুঁজে পাবে ? হাস্যকর ! একটি ঘটনা বলি শুনুন - একজন মানুষ তার তিন ছেলেকে পাঠিয়েছে ব্রহ্মজ্ঞান শিক্ষা করার জন্য। ১০ বছর অধ্যয়নের পর তিন ছেলে বাড়ি ফিরল। বাবা জিজ্ঞাসা করলেন - "তোমরা একে একে বল ব্রহ্ম কি?" বড় ছেলে প্রায় ১ ঘণ্টা ধরে নানা রকম শ্লোকের মাধ্যমে বলে গেল, ২য় জন ও প্রায় তাই। ৩য় জন নীরব। বাবা বললেন - "কি হল কিছু বলছ না কেন ?" ছেলে বলে উঠল "আমি এত বছরে এত পড়েও জানতে পারলাম না ব্রহ্ম কি?" বাবা সস্নেহে হাত রাখেন তার মাথায় - "তুমিই কিছুটা বুঝতে পেরেছ ব্রহ্ম কি। ব্রহ্ম মুখে বলা যায় না, তাকে অনুভব করতে হয় চেতনায়।" একই কথা বিদ্যাসাগরের সাথে সাক্ষাতে শ্রী রামকৃষ্ণ বলছেন। বিদ্যাসাগর প্রশ্ন করছেন আচ্ছা ব্রহ্ম কি ? শ্রী রামকৃষ্ণ বলছেন - "পৃথিবীতে ব্রহ্মই একমাত্র এমন, যা উচ্ছিষ্ট নয়।" সকলে অবাক। তিনি ব্যখা করলেন "সব কিছু আমরা উচ্চারণ করতে পারি কিন্ত ব্রহ্মের স্বরূপ উচ্চারিত হয় না কারণ যিনি ব্রহ্মজ্ঞান লাভ করেছেন তিনি তা উচ্চারণ করার জায়গায় থাকেন না, তিনি অসীমানন্দে বিলীন হয়ে যান।" বিদ্যাসাগর অবাক হয়ে ভাবলেন "আমি এত পড়েছি কিন্ত এই ভাবে তো অনুভব করিনি অথচ এই মানুষটি যিনি প্রথাগত শিক্ষায় শিক্ষিত নন, তিনি কি সহজ ভাবে আমাকে বুঝিয়ে দিয়ে গেলেন।" এই হচ্ছে হিন্দু দর্শন @ Abhijit Debnath পৃথিবীর শ্রেষ্ঠ দর্শন। আপনাদের হিন্দু ধর্ম নয়। আমি হিন্দু দর্শনের চির অনুরাগী আছি - ছিলাম - থাকব। আপনাদের কোন ব্যঙ্গ - কোন বিদ্রূপ আমাকে সেই পথ থেকে সরাতে পারবে না আবার একই সঙ্গে সেই মহান দর্শনকে অসৎ উদ্দেশ্যে ব্যবহার করে তাকে কলঙ্কিত করতে চাইবে (একটি বিশেষ রাজনৈতিক দল ও তার অনুগামীরা যা করছে) তার প্রতিবাদ করব আমার কলমের যতটুকু ক্ষমতা আছে তা দিয়ে - সেখানেও আপনাদের কোন ব্যঙ্গ - কোন বিদ্রূপ আমাকে সেই পথ থেকে সরাতে পারবে না। কারণ সেই গীতা।


প্রশ্ন এলে উত্তর দেওয়া দায়িত্ব একজন গীতা না পড়ে COMMUNIST MANIFESTO পড়ার কথা বলেছেন বিনযের সাথে বলছি, আপনি / আপনারা ওটাও ভালো করে পড়ে উঠতে পারবেন না কারণ হিন্দু দর্শন সম্পর্কে জানতে হলে গীতা অবশ্য পাঠ্য গীতার কত ভাষ্য আছে তা গুনে বলা যায় না - WIKIPEDIA কেন কোথাও সম্পূর্ণ তথ্য নেই গীতা এবং তার বক্তব্য নিয়ে আমার কোন কথা নেই কারণ শুধু ভারতের নয় মানবিক জীবন দর্শনের একটি অংশ ধরা আছে গীতা মধ্যে সারা জীবন ধরে পড়লেও আমি গীতার সম্পূর্ণ অর্থ বুঝে উঠতে পারব না এমনই গভীর সে দর্শন আর হিন্দু দর্শন - রাম কৃষ্ণ দেব, সৈয়দ মুজতবা আলি, ম্যাক্স মুলার রম্যা রল্যা, রবীন্দ্রনাথ এমনকি আইনস্তাইন যে দর্শনের তল খুঁজে পেলেন না তার তল আমার মত একজন অকিঞ্চিৎকর মানুষ খুঁজে পাবে ? হাস্যকর ! গীতায় কৃষ্ণ বলছেন – “ জগতে সব কিছু নশ্বর আত্মা অবিনশ্বর আগুন তাহাকে পোড়াতে পারে না এবার প্রশ্ন জাগে আত্মা কি ? উত্তর খুঁজে পাই মানুষের জীবনেআত্মাকোন অশরীরী নয়আত্মাহল চেতনা রবীন্দ্রনাথের নশ্বর দেহ পুড়ে ছাই হয়ে গেছেনজরুল গেছে কবরে কিন্ত এঁদের লেখা ! আজও আমরা পড়িআজি হতে শতবর্ষ পরে, কে তুমি পড়িছ বসে বাতায়ন পারে আমার কবিতাখানি কৌতূহলভরেঅথবাআজ সৃষ্টি সুখের উল্লাসে মোর মন হাসে, মোর প্রাণ হাসে, আজ সৃষ্টি সুখের উল্লাসেকিংবাঅবাক পৃথিবী, অবাক করলে তুমি, জন্মেই দেখি ক্ষুব্ধ স্বদেশ ভূমি আমরা খুঁজে পাই না কি এদের আত্মা কে ? আমাদের করে যাওয়া কাজ আমাদেরআত্মাতাই সে অবিনশ্বর আজ থেকে সহস্র বছর পরেও এদের লেখা নিয়ে আলোচনা চলবে গবেষণা চলবে যেমন আজ আমরা করে চলছি হরপ্পামহেঞ্জদড়োর শিলালিপি নিয়ে সেই মানুষ গুলো আজ নেই কিন্ত তাঁদেরআত্মা” ? তাই শরীর নশ্বর আত্মা অবিনশ্বর এই চেতনা হিন্দু দর্শন ছাড়া আর কোথায় আছে ? একটি ঘটনা বলি শুনুন - একজন মানুষ তার তিন ছেলেকে পাঠিয়েছে ব্রহ্মজ্ঞান শিক্ষা করার জন্য ১০ বছর অধ্যয়নের পর তিন ছেলে বাড়ি ফিরল বাবা জিজ্ঞাসা করলেন - "তোমরা একে একে বল ব্রহ্ম কি?" বড় ছেলে প্রায় ঘণ্টা ধরে নানা রকম শ্লোকের মাধ্যমে বলে গেল, ২য় জন প্রায় তাই ৩য় জন নীরব বাবা বললেন - "কি হল কিছু বলছ না কেন ?" ছেলে বলে উঠল "আমি এত বছরে এত পড়েও জানতে পারলাম না ব্রহ্ম কি?" বাবা সস্নেহে হাত রাখেন তার মাথায় - "তুমিই কিছুটা বুঝতে পেরেছ ব্রহ্ম কি ব্রহ্ম মুখে বলা যায় না, তাকে অনুভব করতে হয় চেতনায়" একই কথা বিদ্যাসাগরের সাথে সাক্ষাতে শ্রী রামকৃষ্ণ বলছেন বিদ্যাসাগর প্রশ্ন করছেন আচ্ছা ব্রহ্ম কি ? শ্রী রামকৃষ্ণ বলছেন - "পৃথিবীতে ব্রহ্মই একমাত্র এমন, যা উচ্ছিষ্ট নয়" সকলে অবাক তিনি ব্যখা করলেন "সব কিছু আমরা উচ্চারণ করতে পারি কিন্ত ব্রহ্মের স্বরূপ উচ্চারিত হয় না কারণ যিনি ব্রহ্মজ্ঞান লাভ করেছেন তিনি তা উচ্চারণ করার জায়গায় থাকেন না, তিনি অসীমানন্দে বিলীন হয়ে যান" বিদ্যাসাগর অবাক হয়ে ভাবলেন "আমি এত পড়েছি কিন্ত এই ভাবে তো অনুভব করিনি অথচ এই মানুষটি যিনি প্রথাগত শিক্ষায় শিক্ষিত নন, তিনি কি সহজ ভাবে আমাকে বুঝিয়ে দিয়ে গেলেন" এই হচ্ছে হিন্দু দর্শন পৃথিবীর শ্রেষ্ঠ দর্শন হিন্দু ধর্ম নয় প্রতিটি জীবন এক অন্ধকার থেকে এসে অন্য অন্ধকারে মিলিয়ে যায় মাঝখানের চেতন জগতে সে তার কাজটুকু করে যায় শিক্ষা আমি হিন্দু দর্শন (মনে রাখবেন ধর্ম নয়) থেকেই পেয়েছি গীতা গীতা নিয়ে না চেঁচিয়ে (মনে হয় গীতা আপনার প্রেমিকা বা বোন) একটু পড়ুন আমার কথার সমর্থনে যুক্তি গীতা শ্লোকেই পাবেন গীতা বলছে "তুমি আমার শরীর কে ধবংস করতে পার কিন্ত আমার আত্মাকে নয়" অর্থাৎ মানুষের শরীর কালের নিয়মে ধ্বংসপ্রাপ্ত হয় কিন্ত তার চিন্তাধারা তার দর্শন হয় না কথা কে অস্বীকার করব কি করে ? আমি যা লিখছি, গীতা আমাকে শিখিয়েছে আমি হিন্দু দর্শনের চির অনুরাগী আছি - ছিলাম - থাকব আপনাদের কোন ব্যঙ্গ - কোন বিদ্রূপ আমাকে সেই পথ থেকে সরাতে পারবে না আবার একই সঙ্গে সেই মহান দর্শনকে অসৎ উদ্দেশ্যে ব্যবহার করে তাকে কলঙ্কিত করতে চাইবে (একটি বিশেষ রাজনৈতিক দল তার অনুগামীরা যা করছে) তার প্রতিবাদ করব আমার কলমের যতটুকু ক্ষমতা আছে তা দিয়ে - সেখানেও আপনাদের কোন ব্যঙ্গ - কোন বিদ্রূপ আমাকে সেই পথ থেকে সরাতে পারবে না কারণ সেই গীতা


গীতার কত ভাষ্য আছে তা গুনে বলা যায় না - WIKIPEDIA কেন কোথাও সম্পূর্ণ তথ্য নেইগীতা এবং তার বক্তব্য নিয়ে আমার কোন কথা নেই কারণ শুধু ভারতের নয় মানবিক জীবন দর্শনের একটি অংশ ধরা আছে গীতা মধ্যেসারা জীবন ধরে পড়লেও আমি গীতার সম্পূর্ণ অর্থ বুঝে উঠতে পারব না এমনই গভীর সে দর্শনআর হিন্দু দর্শন - রাম কৃষ্ণ দেব, সৈয়দ মুজতবা আলি, ম্যাক্স মুলার রম্যা রল্যা, রবীন্দ্রনাথ এমনকি আইনস্তাইন যে দর্শনের তল খুঁজে পেলেন না তার তল আমার মত একজন অকিঞ্চিৎকর মানুষ খুঁজে পাবে ? হাস্যকর !

গীতা বলছে " অর্থাৎ মানুষের শরীর কালের নিয়মে ধ্বংসপ্রাপ্ত হয় কিন্ত তার চিন্তাধারা তার দর্শন হয় না কথা কে অস্বীকার করব কি করে ?গীতায় কৃষ্ণ বলছেন – “"তুমি আমার শরীর কে ধবংস করতে পার কিন্ত আমার আত্মাকে নয় জগতে সব কিছু নশ্বর আত্মা অবিনশ্বরআগুন তাহাকে  পোড়াতে পারে নাএবার প্রশ্ন জাগে আত্মা কি ? উত্তর খুঁজে পাই মানুষের জীবনেআত্মাকোন অশরীরী নয়আত্মাহল চেতনা অর্থাৎ মানুষের শরীর কালের নিয়মে ধ্বংসপ্রাপ্ত হয় কিন্ত তার চিন্তাধারা তার দর্শন হয় না রবীন্দ্রনাথের নশ্বর দেহ পুড়ে ছাই হয়ে গেছেনজরুল গেছে কবরে কিন্ত এঁদের লেখা ! আজও আমরা পড়িআজি হতে শতবর্ষ পরে, কে তুমি পড়িছ  বসে বাতায়ন পারে আমার কবিতাখানি  কৌতূহলভরেঅথবাআজ সৃষ্টি সুখের উল্লাসে মোর মন হাসে, মোর প্রাণ হাসে, আজ সৃষ্টি সুখের উল্লাসেকিংবাঅবাক পৃথিবী, অবাক করলে তুমি, জন্মেই দেখি ক্ষুব্ধ স্বদেশ ভূমিআমরা খুঁজে পাই না কি এদের আত্মা কে ? আমাদের করে যাওয়া কাজ আমাদেরআত্মাতাই সে অবিনশ্বরআজ থেকে সহস্র বছর পরেও এদের লেখা নিয়ে আলোচনা চলবে গবেষণা চলবে যেমন আজ আমরা করে চলছি হরপ্পামহেঞ্জদড়োর  শিলালিপি নিয়েসেই মানুষ গুলো আজ নেই কিন্ত তাঁদেরআত্মা” ? তাই শরীর নশ্বর আত্মা অবিনশ্বরএই চেতনা এত গভীর চিন্তাধারা হিন্দু দর্শন ছাড়া আর কোথায় আছে ? কথা কে অস্বীকার করব কি করে ? সৈয়দ মুজতবা আলি বলছেন আজ যখন কাউকে দেখি স্বপ্ন ভরা চোখে উপনিষদ পাঠে নিমগ্ন মনে হয় ভারতীয় দর্শনের মূল রূপ খোঁজার চেষ্টায় নিরত এক জ্ঞান তপস্বী

এই পৃথিবী তে প্রতিটি জীবনবহিরাগতকারণ জীবন কোথা থেকে আসে আর কোথায় মিলিয়ে যায় তার দিশা আজও  কেউ দিতে পারে নিএক অন্ধকার থেকে এসে আর এক অন্ধকারে মিলিয়ে যাওয়া মাঝখানে চেতন জগতের আনন্দ উপভোগ করা এই তো জীবন দর্শন আমি গীতা পড়েই জেনেছি.

একটি ঘটনা বলি শুনুন - একজন মানুষ তার তিন ছেলেকে পাঠিয়েছে ব্রহ্মজ্ঞান শিক্ষা করার জন্য১০ বছর অধ্যয়নের পর তিন ছেলে বাড়ি ফিরলবাবা জিজ্ঞাসা করলেন - "তোমরা একে একে বল ব্রহ্ম কি?" বড় ছেলে প্রায় ঘণ্টা ধরে নানা রকম শ্লোকের মাধ্যমে বলে গেল, ২য় জন প্রায় তাই৩য় জন নীরব বাবা বললেন - "কি হল কিছু বলছ না কেন ?" ছেলে বলে উঠল "আমি এত বছরে এত পড়েও জানতে পারলাম না ব্রহ্ম কি?" বাবা সস্নেহে হাত রাখেন তার মাথায় - "তুমিই কিছুটা বুঝতে পেরেছ ব্রহ্ম কিব্রহ্ম মুখে বলা যায় না, তাকে অনুভব করতে হয় চেতনায়" একই কথা বিদ্যাসাগরের সাথে সাক্ষাতে শ্রী রামকৃষ্ণ বলছেন বিদ্যাসাগর প্রশ্ন করছেন আচ্ছা ব্রহ্ম কি ? শ্রী রামকৃষ্ণ বলছেন - "পৃথিবীতে ব্রহ্মই একমাত্র এমন, যা উচ্ছিষ্ট নয়" সকলে অবাকতিনি ব্যখা করলেন "সব কিছু আমরা উচ্চারণ করতে পারি কিন্ত ব্রহ্মের স্বরূপ উচ্চারিত হয় না কারণ যিনি ব্রহ্মজ্ঞান লাভ করেছেন তিনি তা উচ্চারণ করার জায়গায় থাকেন না, তিনি অসীমানন্দে বিলীন হয়ে যান" বিদ্যাসাগর অবাক হয়ে ভাবলেন "আমি এত পড়েছি কিন্ত এই ভাবে তো অনুভব করিনি অথচ এই মানুষটি যিনি প্রথাগত শিক্ষায় শিক্ষিত নন, তিনি কি সহজ ভাবে আমাকে বুঝিয়ে দিয়ে গেলেন" এই হচ্ছে হিন্দু হিন্দু ধর্ম নয় আমি হিন্দু দর্শনের চির অনুরাগী আছি - ছিলাম - থাকবআপনাদের কোন ব্যঙ্গ - কোন বিদ্রূপ আমাকে সেই পথ থেকে সরাতে পারবে না আবার একই সঙ্গে সেই মহান দর্শনকে অসৎ উদ্দেশ্যে ব্যবহার করে তাকে কলঙ্কিত করতে চাইবে (একটি বিশেষ রাজনৈতিক দল তার অনুগামীরা যা করছে) তার প্রতিবাদ করব আমার কলমের যতটুকু ক্ষমতা আছে তা দিয়ে - সেখানেও আপনাদের কোন ব্যঙ্গ - কোন বিদ্রূপ আমাকে সেই পথ থেকে সরাতে পারবে নাকারণ সেই গীতা

শেষ কথা গীতাঞ্জলীনোবেলপ্রাইজ না পেলেও আমিবাঙালি গীতাঞ্জলী পড়ত, নোবেল পেয়েছে বলে পড়ে এটা কিন্ত নয়