Jaina Philosophy and Religion

SR No.: 001604
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Nyayavijay
Publisher: B L Institute of Indology
Publication Year: 1998
Total Pages: 500
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, & Epistemology
File Size: 12 MB

Page 61

Essentials of Jaina Philosophy
33
The cycle of birth and death depends on soul's bondage with karma, and the bondage depends on the unctuousness of attachment, aversion and delusion. How can those who have become absolutely pure, absolutely free from the defilements of karmas, have the unctuousness of attachment, aversion and delusion? And how can there be any possibility of their being bound again with karmas? We cannot even imagine such a situation. And it is only on this account that the Jaina thinkers consider it to be absolutely impossible for the liberated soul to be born again in the world and thus to be caught again in the cycle of birth and death.
Total Removal of All Karmas Possible At this juncture there arises a question: How can the beginningless bondage of karmas with soul be ended or destroyed? It is because there is a rule that the beginningless thing can have no end. In answer to this question we are told that every moment new karmas are bound and some old karmas get dissociated. This means that no bondage of an individual karma is beginningless, but the stream of bondages taking place at different consecutive moments has been flowing from beginningless time. In other words, the ever new karmic material atoms incessantly go on binding the soul and hence the stream of the ever new bondages is beginningless. But the bondage of a particular individual karma is having a beginning. And as it has a beginning, it is bound to have its end. In other words, the bound individual karmas are bound to get dissociated from the soul some time. Thus, no individual karma is bound with soul from beginningless time, and consequently no individual karma remain bound with it for ever, without end. From this follows that it is quite possible for the soul to dissociate all the bound karmas as well as to stop the inflow of the new karmas into it by the force of pure concentration. This ultimately makes possible for the soul to eradicate completely all the karmas and to become absolutely free from them.
Moreover, if we observe the worldly souls, we find that in some the degree of attachment and aversion is greater, in others it is less. Not only that but even in one and the same individual, at one time they are intense and at another time they are mild. The increase and decrease of any thing remain unaccounted for, unless some cause is posited for them. When the cause of its gradual decrease operates with all its force, the thing is destroyed completely. For instance, the intense cold of the month of Pausa gradually decreases as the heat of the sun gradually rises, and it com