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THE JAIN PHILOSOPHY
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and at all times. In the embodied living being, however, this knowledge is largely obscured by a number of foreign energies [karma], which the living being has in combination with itself from infinite time past, and which, during its sojourn in this mundane world, it is continuosly generating. These energies keep it [soul] in the mundane world, preventing it from existing as a free being. It generates these energies by reason of its contact with matter. This is discussed in the chapter on the Tattvas.
6. Kala, or time, is figuratively a substance [dravya]; it is that which is the cause of the oldness or newness of a thing, or anteriority or posteriority of a thing's condition. Time is a substance only by attribution [upachara] from the practical [vyavahara] point of view, because it is measured by the duration of the states of substances.
As mentioned above (5, Jivastikaya), the characteristic quality of the soul (and it is true also of our other qualities) is obscured by the soul's bondage with certain energies foreign to itself (karmas), which keep. the soul in an embodied state. Now,an embodied state suggests a free or liberated state. Regarding these two possible states of the soul, there is the fact that souls (jivas) do exist; there is the fact that inanimate matter (pudgala) exists: souls draw matter
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
