Jaina Perspective in Philosophy and Religion

SR No.: 001747
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Ramjee Singh
Publisher: Parshwanath Shodhpith Varanasi
Publication Year: 1993
Total Pages: 282
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ethics, & Yoga
File Size: 15 MB

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Jaina Perspective in Philosophy and Religion
( doşa ). Both of them, however, are related to each other as cause and effect. The material aggregate of karmic molecules is dravya-karma; its power to operate is bhava-karma. Bhāva-karmas will condition our bhāvas or emotional states, which may be either pleasant or unpleasant. Now, if these states of emotion ( bhāva ) are really brought about by karmic matter, how can Ātman be said to be the cause of these bhāvas ? But the soul's agency is such that while giving up its own state, it can effect entirely alien or non-mental changes (i, e., it is the cause of its own mental states which are also indirectly conditioned by kärmic matter ). To this, we can say that emotional states (bhāvas ) are conditioned by dravyakarma and karma in its turn is conditioned by kármic-thought or bhāva. Jiva is not the essential cause, in that case and still without essential cause, these changes cannot happen. The soul which brings about changes in itself is the upādana-karapa (meterial cause ) of such mental states but not of the changes in kārmic matter, which are distinctly material in nature. This means that there is a psycho-physical parallelism. Jiva brings changes in consciousness, and matter in the case of material things, and yet the two series are interrelated in a parallel pattern. This implies that neither can matter become mind nor can mind become matter. Jiva is the agent of its own bhāvas, as it causes its own resultants. But it is not the agent of pudgala-karmas,
(6) However, much of these difficulties willbe got over, if we adopt the Jaina doctrine of standpoints or naya. According to the practical point of view, the soul is the doer of materialkarmas ( dravya-karma ), but according to the real point of view, it is the doer of ideal karmas ( bhāva-karmas ). For example, in making a pot, the existence of the idea of pot in the mind of the potter is the ideal karma (bhava-karma ). The potter is directly the cause of the bhava-karma and the bhava-karma again is the cause of dravya-karma. Therefore from the real standpoint the 'potter having the idea of the pot is the agent but according to the practical standpoint, he is