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JAINISM
ly active in a perpetual change of the mode of manifesta - tion of their qualities. The universe is, therefore, not one homogeneous substance, it is not one individual being splitting itself up into many. Knowledge is the final ground, and the individual soul has knowledge that the rest of the universe is not identical with himself. At least, those who are claimed to have reached omniscience in the flesh and to have freed themselves from all infatuating elements teach that it is the nature of each soul to have in its being the non-existence (nastitva) of all other souls and things. One soul does not become another. Neither is the universe created by one being out of nothing; neither is the universe a soulless mechanism.
The next part of the subject of the book is man; he being the part of the universe that religious doctrine concerns. Man can be regarded as he actually is, or as he is potentially. Thus we get the next three parts of the subject, the third being the means by which he can become what he is potentially.
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