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( VIII) discussion on metaphysical issues of vital importance in regard to the relation in question and its changes as well. The question as to when and how the soul which is constitutionally free and potentially divine came to be entangled into the meshes of the dialectic movements of the world-process without beginning and end, and which irritates the metaphysicans and speculative writers most in these days of scientific 'enquiry, has been discussed andhsolution given once for all. Every other position being untenable, the Jains hold that both the Soul and the Karma (i.e. the materialised units into which jivic energetics resolve themselves) stand to each other in relation of phenomenal conjunction, which reveals itself in the continuity of the display from time without beginning, neither of the two being either prior or posterior to the other in the order of time, so far the question of their metaphysical entity is concerned—and di apaschånupurvi sanyoga sambandha pravaha. Such is the position of the jivas in the ocean of samsår whereon tumultuous waves furiously surging in various names and forms, ruffle the vast expanse. And just as the angularities of
