Sramana 2013 07

SR No.: 525085
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Ashokkumar Singh
Publisher: Parshvanath Vidhyashram Varanasi
Publication Year: 2013
Total Pages: 154
Language: Hindi
Classification: Magazine, India_Sramana, & India
File Size: 22 MB

Page 96

The Vibrancy of Pudgala: Thinking about... 89 This paper is an attempt at connectivity. I, a young, Western vital-materialist, am seeking to connect to Jain philosophy. Jainism is profoundly sensitive to the smallest aspects of life; this is something that I can appreciate immensely. Jainism has taught me to be more aware to the life around me. Yet, I find it surprising that matter is constantly overlooked. This attempt is perhaps too idealistic, too speculative, too impossible. I do not believe there will ever be a true integration or synthesis between my worldview and Jainism. Matter and the material are far too important to me and matter and the material is not as important for Jain dharma. However, I believe my endeavor to find a possible vantage point has nonetheless been fruitful. In attempting to bridge the gap between Jainism and vital materialism, I highlighted the curious power of pudgala, of karma. Matter is no longer passive or inanimate but rather it serves, it edifies the jiva. I have argued that Jainism has always said this; indeed, this fact is only hidden by the overwhelming significance of the soul. This project is a slight shift away from the soul. A perspectival slip, a verbal twist, a glance down to the messy, eternal, changing, karmic stuff called matter. When we begin to think in tandem with Jain philosophy and vital materialism, our attentiveness, our carefulness becomes even more attentive and careful. We begin to see matter differently. Vibrantly.
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Long, Jeffery D., Jainism: An introduction (London: I.B. Tauris, 2009), p.19. I do not mean "healthy" in the sense that I wish matter to be a permanently "positive" concept. I do not think that Jainism would ever have a truly "positive" notion of what matter is, due to the fact that matter is bondage and prevents the soul from achieving its true trajectory: mokca. What I wish to mean when I use "healthy" is perhaps something akin to "robust."
Bennett, Jane, Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), p.3.
Cort, John, "Green Jainism? Notes and queries toward a possible Jain environmental ethic," in Jainism and ecology: Nonviolence in the web of life, edited by Christopher Key Chapple (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 84.
Long, Jainism, p. 141.
Ibid, p.143
Ibid, p.146-148.
Ibid, p.171.
Jyoti Prasad Jain, Religion and culture of the Jains (New Delhi: Bharatiya Jnanpith, 1975), p.39.
Ibid.
Jain, Veer Sagar, and Shugan C. Jain, "Reality (sat) and concept of dravya (substance)," in Select papers on Jainism -Volume II: Jain philosophy including karma doctrine, edited by Shugan Chand Jain (New Delhi: International School for Jain Studies, 2013), p.2.
Ibid.
Jain, Jyoti, Religion and culture, p. 40.
Jain, Veer Sagar, and Shugan C. Jain, "Reality," p.10.
Jain, Jyoti, Religion and culture, p. 40.