Jaina Philosophy

SR No.: 006901
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Virchand R Gandhi, Kumarpal Desai
Publisher: World Jain Confederation
Publication Year: 2009
Total Pages: 298
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 5 MB

Page 155

The Jaina Philosophy
As to the nature of man, Buddha's teaching is that it consists of an assemblage of different properties or qualities or aggregates none of which corresponds to the Hindu or modern nation of soul. These are Rupa, forms or material attributes, Vedana, sensation Sangna, notions or abstract ideas, sanskara, tendencies or potentialities and Vignana i. e., consciousness or mental powers. These aggregates along With hundred and ninety three subdivisions exhaust all the elements, all the material, intellectual and moral properties and attributes of the individual. There exists nothing apart from these, either fixed principle or soul, or simple or permanent substance of any kind. They unite and arrange themselves so as to form a several being, undergo incessant modification along with it and dissolve at its death; the individual being throughout a compound off compounds entirely perishes. The influence of its karman alone of its acts survives it and through this the formation of a new group of Skanathas or aggregates is immediately effected; a new individual rises into existence in some other world and continues in some degree the first. The Buddhist strictly speaking does not revive but another if I may say so, revives in his stead and it is to avert from this other, who is to be only the heir of his karma, the pains of existence that he aspires to Nirvana.
Let us now turn to Jainism and see what explanation it offers as to the nature and existence of soul. While Vedantism says that in reality nothing exists apart from Brahma, that the phenomenal world is an illusory phantom, that the only reality is nonmenon the Brahma, Jainism says that both the nonmenon and the phenomenon are real, the one cannot be separated from the other; Reality is 'not in the one, if considered alone and by itself, nor in the other if considered alone and by itself. The one as well as the other is a part of the reality.
So in the Jaina philosophy, the existence of both spirit and matter is postulated - both of them existing as separate entities
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