Religion and Philosophy of the Jainas

SR No.: 001190
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Jain International Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1993
Total Pages: 266
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, Ethics, & Principle
File Size: 13 MB

Page 190

STAGES OF SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
157 are not. These living beings are conscious, they are very minute, and cannot be seen with eye or microscope, fire will not kill them, nor will water, they pass through these things without being hurt, no human instrument can kill these living beings, they can pass through mountains or anything. There are an infinity of living beings and this is the source whence come the developing and liberated souls. They have an indefinite existence. They are called 'nigoda'. Development Begins
The mithyātva of these nigoda is avyakta mithyātva or indefinite; it has not taken any shape, whereas the mithyātva of human beings is shaped and definite. A person has certain views on certain subjects.
The mithyātva in the mithyātva gunasthāna or first stage of development, is of the definite kind; the indefinite kind is not a stage of development and the nigoda are in that indefinite stage of existence, which is the stage of existence before development has begun.
When once out of the indefinite mithyātva state, the living being never goes back to it; if it goes back to the nigoda state, it goes back to a nigoda of a different kind, namely, having vyakta or definite mithyātva. There are, therefore, two kinds of nigoda, one with indefinite mithyātva whose development has not begun, and the other kind with definite mithyātva whose development has begun and who are therefore in the first stage of development or mithyātva gunasthāna.
The answer to the very natural question which arises here, “What starts the development ?", would be something like this : in a whirlpool some bit of stick or paper or other matter may in the surging of the water get to one side and become separated from the rest, be caught by the wind, and dried by the sun; and so some such thing may happen to a nigoda which would awaken just a spark of the latent potential power of development.
It is also the theory of the Jainas that as a soul passes from the embodied to the liberated state, a nigoda comes out and begins development. But this does not mean that a nigoda comes out only on such occassions. Three kinds of Living Beings
There are, accroding to the Jaina philosophy, three kinds of living beings, namely : (1) Those whose nature it is to remain in the