Jainism a Theistic Philosophy

SR No.: 006918
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Krishna A Gosavi
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith
Publication Year: 2012
Total Pages: 358
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 6 MB

Page 239

JAINA VIEW OF SOUL COMPARED WITH ......
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The nature of the soul is constant freedom and indifference to pleasure and pain alike.
What is the nature of soul? Kapila answers: since light does not pertain to the unintelligent, light is the essence of soul.
The followers of the Vaišeșikas system think that intelligence is only an attribute of soul; really it is without quality. According to Sāṁkhya it is essentially intelligent.
Kapila does not agree with the Vedāntists when they say that soul is one only for it is eternal, omnipresent, changeless and void of blemish; on the contrary, he says that from the fact [that] when one person is born another dies and third one becomes old at the same time [it follows that] there is a multiplicity of soul. If soul were one only, when one is born all must born. Both the Vedāntists and Sāmkhyas are followers of the Veda and in Veda there is a passage like, Brahma is one without a second. Kapila say: In the Purāņas it is said that Vāmadeva has been liberated, Suka has been liberated. If soul were one, since the liberation of all would take place on the liberation of one, and the mention of diverse liberation would be self-contradictory. 42
Similarities between the essential of Sāṁkhya and those of Jainism can be explained here. The Sāṁkhya wants to explain world in terms of two basic categories namely, Puruşa and Praksti, just as Jainism wants to explain everything in terms of Jiva and Ajīva. The Sāṁkhya concept of Purușa and Prakrti are very primitive, scholars think so, and these concepts evidently stood for male and female principles of creation. Later, in subsequent stages of its (Sāṁkhya) philosophy Puruşa came to denote as soul and Praksti or the female principal, the primordial substances, as the inanimate matter. The
4- Sāṁkhya-sūtra, 1.157