Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism

SR No.: 001617
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: S C Jain
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith
Publication Year: 1978
Total Pages: 272
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Epistemology, Nyay, & Spiritual
File Size: 16 MB

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216 :: Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism
If these non-operative manifestations are not so based, they are said to be natural manifestations. This two fold or five fold division of the conscious manifestations of the jiva is the very foundation of the Jaina or the karma psychology which aims at going deeper into the very nature of the self and the causes of the variations of its powers. We cannot agree with the view of modern psychology which makes a great use of the powers of the psyche but does not believe in a substratum for such powers. B.L. Atreya correctly odserves: "In the zeal to acquire the status of an exact science psychology has really lost its soul and has been wasting much of its time in aping the lower sciences of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, which are built on a Method which fails in the field of psychology, unless supplemented by another which is pecularly its own” C.R. Jain also makes a similar remark. He says “The Jaina or Higher psychology as it might be termed, is not connected with that elementary branch of the subject which exhausts itself in the measurement of sensations, the effect of emotions on the outer physical body and the like, but which studiously avoids to ascertain whether the soul be a reality or myth. Its province in the higher department of thought which seeks to understand the nature of the thing whose presence is the source of life and light in the body and also of action and the inhibition of action, and of the diversified impulsions and promptings of the mind.”2
IV
The Problem of Karma-Determinism, Indeterminism and Freedom
If the relation between the soul and the karmas is to be designated as an interactionism, it is an interactionism in which neither the substance nor the attributes of the one are
1. B.L. Atreya: An Introduction to Para Psychology, p. 1 2. C.R. Jain: Jaina Psychology (Preface)