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SOME JAINA CANONICAL SUTRAS
From the critical summary of the contents of this Sūtra it will be seen that the tenets of primitive Jainism as expounded in the āgama texts, were systematized for the first time by Umāsvāti. The outlines of Jainism as a religion and philosophy go to show that the doctrines are yet somewhat crude and the concepts are still vague and indefinite. The Jaina notion of karma is undoubtedly of a physical nature. How is it possible for the karmic matter to flow into an individual life to produce a colour effect on soul? How far is such a theory tenable scientifically and metaphysically? These questions are sure to exercise the brains of modern students. In conceiving the soul as a conscious principle co-extensive with the whole of the living organism, the Jaina thinkers made a departure no doubt from the Sāmkhya idea of Puruşa and the Upanişadic idea of Ātman. So far as they stood for the innumerability of souls, their position is identical with that of the Sāmkliva teachers. It is rather unexpected that the Jaina meditations partake more of the nature of superficial mental reflections adapted to the practice of certain austerities than of the meditations according to the time-honoured yoga practice. It may be truc, as claimed by some, that Mahāvīra could have trances in any posture and at ease. In other words, he was a great layayogin but even Umāsvāti's treatise does not throw any clear light on the early Jaina method of yoga.
