________________
CHAPTER FIVE
The chapters second to fourth have offered an account of the fundamental verity jīva or soul; the present chapter offers an account of the fundamental verity ajīva or not-soul.
The Types of ajīva :
The asţikāya dharma, the āstikāya adharma, the asţikāya ākāśa and the asţikāya pudgala—these four are ajīva-kāyas or bodies of the form of not-soul. 1.
The methodology of treatment requires that a thing should be defined first and then there should follow an enumeration of its types. But when in the present context the author without offering a definition of the fundamental verity ajīva enumerates its types his idea is that the definition of ajīva becomes understood on the basis of a definition of jīva itself; hence there is no particular need to offer a separate definition of ajīva. Certainly. the construction of jīva demonstrates that that which is not jīva is ajīva. Now upayoga or cognition constitutes a definition of jīvaso that the verity devoid of upayoga is ajīva; and from this it automatically follows that absence of upayoga constitutes a definition of ajīva.
Ajīva is a positive verity standing opposed to jīva; it is not merely of the form of negation.
When dharma etc.—the four verities of an ajīva type—are called asţikāya the idea is that they are not of the form of a single unit or a single component but of a combination or collection. Dharma, adharma and ākāśa, these three are of the form of a collection of units, while pudgala is either of the form
Jain Education International
For Personal & Private Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
