Reals on the Jaina Metaphysics

SR No.: 001619
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: Shatnidas Khetsy Charitable Trust Mumbai
Publication Year: 1966
Total Pages: 430
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, Religion, & Epistemology
File Size: 8 MB

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Reals in the Jaina Metaphysics The quotations would show that according to the Jaina’s, there is a real substance, called the Jiva which is different from the unconscious Matter and that this Jiva is conscious, formless, subject to the influence of Karma in its mundane state, is an active agent and enjoyer of the fruits of its acts and is of the same extent as its body and so on.
DENIAL OF SOUL BY THE ÇĀRVĀKA'S
The Çārvāka's do not admit the reality of any substance besides Matter. According to them, the elements of Earth, Water, Air and Fire are the four fundamental realities; there is no other reality besides them; all the things of the world are but the combinations of these four primal substances. It cannot of course be denied that Man etc. are conscious; but the fact of their having consciousness need not necessarily prove that they have Souls. The theory of the Çārvāka's is that just as intoxicating substance is the effect of the fermentation of rice, mollasses etc., consciousness is a peculiar effect of the combination of the four primordial material Elements. The materialists of the present day argue in a similar way. According to them, consciousness is produced by the brain in the same manner as bile is secreted by the liver. Hence there is no necessity for admitting the reality of the Soul.
One of the answers to the above materialist contention is that the intoxicating substance originating from rice,
tc. is a material substance after all and that the bile secreted by the liver is nothing other than material in nature. Matter only can come out of Matter; what is produced by the brain is but something material like the brain itself. But how can consciousness which is different from Matter be regarded as the effect of material substances like the brain etc.? The idealist thinkers of modern times accordingly repudiate the materialist theory and admit the separate reality of consciousness. The Buddhist philosophers in India also could not look upon consciousness as nothing but a product of Matter; in enunciating