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RELIGIOUS SECTS
of virtue and vice, or where would be the use of acts of virtue or piety.
AGNIBHÚTI questions if there be acts (Karma) or not, to which MAHAVIRA replies in the affirmative, and that froin them proceed all bodily pleasure and pain, and the various migrations of the living principle through different forms.
VÁYUBHÚTI doubts if life be not body, which the Sage denies, as the objects of the senses may be remembered after the senses cease to act, even after death, that is, in a succeeding state of existence occasionally.
VYAKTA questions the reality of elementary matter, referring it with the Vedantis to illusion; the Sage replies that the doctrine of vacuity is false, illustrating his position rather obscurely by asking if there are no other worlds than the Gandharva, cities of dreams, or castles in the air.
SUDHARMÁ imagines that the same kind of bodies which are worn in one life will be assumed in another, or that a human being must be born again ainongst mankind; for as the tree is always of the same nature as the seed, so must the consequences of acts, in a peculiar capacity, lead to results adapted to a similar condition. This MAHÁVÍRA contradicts, and says that causes and effects are not necessarily of the same nature, as horn, and similar materials are convertible into arrow-barbs, and the like.
MANDITA has not made up his mind on the subjects of bondage and liberation, (Bandha and Moksha); the Jina explains the former to be connexion with and
