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Concept of "Jiva (Soul)" in Jaina Philosophy
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attitude) and energy, i. e. effort or purity-impurity of human effort in it, but not like the Samkhya-Yoga tradition, as supposed by the relation of the attributive subtle body.
The Nature of Soul: Buddhist View
In order to deal with the nature of Soul in the Buddhist Philosophy, it is to be noted that the central idea of Lord Buddha that he could not perceive the permanence of any entity or substance made a tremendous influence on the later entire retinue of his followers. So, one undivided theory in regard to the nature of Soul did not remain fixed in the Buddhist Nikayas as it happend in the case of the Jaina, SamkhyaYoga, and Nyaya-Vaiseşika systems of thought.
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In the history of the Buddhist Philosophy or the Buddhist determination of reality in regard to the nature of Soul there are found five divisions: (1) PudgalaVartamangnairatmyavāda, (2) Pudgalastivāda, (3) Traikālika-dharmavada and dharmavada, (4) Dharma-nairäimya or Niḥsvabhava or Sunyavada, and (5) The Vijñānavāda. The Pali Pitaka says in one voice that the reality whose determination the other thinkers make in the form of Soul is like the momentary combination of mutually undivided feelings, ideas, volitions and other faculties and pure sensation or general consciousness." That is to say, there is no Soul apart from feelings, ideas, volitions, etc. The Buddhists make mention of it by the term 'nama'. In the Upanisads" the words 'nama-rupa' appear jointly and also a reference is there that any fundamental reality manifests itself in the nature of nama (name) and rupa (form). Lord Buddha did not accept any such different fundamental reality from which there may be the manifestation of näma, but he admitted nama' as an independent reality like the rupa; and this reality also is beginningless and endless because of being first indicated as aggregate (samghata-rupa) and bound in issues (santatibaddha). Prof. Vidhusekhara Bhattacharya this way explains the point: "By name 'nama' we understand primarily the mind (citta, vijñāna, manas (consciousness) and secondarily the mentals (caitasika dharmas), i, e. feeling, perception, and the co-effects of consciousness (vedana, saṁjñā, samskara). As the mind with the mentals 'inclines' (namati) towards its objects, it is called nama"." It can be observed in the evidence of the Pitaka that the stream of the aggregate of feelings, ideas, volitions and other faculties and consciousness is continuously flowing.
This theory is known as Pudgala-natrātmyavada because of there being no place of the permanent reality of the Soul-Substance (Pudgala dravya) in this consciousnesscentred current. But on the other side, there were four groups of the Buddhist order and many of the advocates of the doctrine of eternal Soul. When there might have begun the charge of Soullessness (nairatmya) from their quarters (four groups of the Buddhist order) and some people holding the view of the doctrine of eternality of Soul, might have joined the Buddhist order, then they again established the doctrine of Soul in their own manner. This doctrine is met with is the Kathavatthu; the Tattvasamgraha
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