Some Problems in Jaina Psychology

SR No.: 001260
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T G Kalghatgi
Publisher: Karnatak University Dharwar
Publication Year: 1961
Total Pages: 205
Language: English
Classification: Book_English & Philosophy
File Size: 13 MB

Page 22

THE JAINA THEORY OF THE SOUL
its possessor. Jainism asserts that only from the phenomenal point of view they are separable. In Pancāstikāyasāra we read "Only in common parlance do we distinguish darśana and jñāna. But in reality there is no separation."15 The soul is inseparable from upayoga. Horme is an essential characteristic of the living organism. It is manifested in the fundamental property experienced in the incessant adjustments and adventures that make up the tissue of life and which may be called drive or felt tendency towards an end. 16 Animal life is not merely permeated by physical and chemical processes; it is more than that. Even the simplest animal is autonomous.
The soul is simple and without parts. It is formless. As the soul is immaterial it has no form. This quality has been mentioned in other systems also. The Jaina thinkers were against the Buddhist idea of the soul as a cluster of khandas. Buddhists do not refer to the permanent soul. It is a composite of mental states called khandas. "In modern Western thought", Hume says, "when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble upon some particular perception or other of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never catch myself any time without perception, and never can observe anything but the perception."17 Höffding stated that the ego has been looked for in vain as something absolutely simple. The nature of the ego is manifested in the combination of sensation, ideas and feelings. But Herbart maintains that the soul is a simple being not only without parts but also without qualitative multiplicity. Modern psychology has emphasized substantiality, simplicity, persistence and consciousness as the attributes of the soul. Descartes has said, "I am the thing that thinks, that is to say who doubts, who affirms ... who loves, who hates and feels...," this and he designates this thing as substance.18
Hamilton advocated the four characteristics with the greatest explicitness. Other prominent names are those of Porter, Calkins, Angell and Aveling.19
From the phenomenal point of view, jīva is also described as possessing four prāņas. They are sense (indriya), energy (bala), life (āyu), and respiration (ana). Pancāstikāyasāra gives the same description. The idea of prāna is found in Indian and Western thought. In the Old Testament (Genesis: Book I) we read, "The Lord God breathed into the nostril the breath of life and man became a living soul." In the primitive minds we find the conception that the wind gave men life. When it
15 Pañcāstikayasara, 41. 16 McDougall (William): An Outline of Psychology, Ch. 3. 17 Hume (David): Treatise of Human Nature, Book I Pt. IV, 6. 18 Descartes: Meditations, II 19 Spoarman (C.): Psychology Down the Ages Vol. I Ch. XXIpp. 391-92.