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Concept of "Jiva (Soul)” in Jaina Philosophy
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Every Ācārya like Sankara and others took mainly the basis of the Upanişads in support of his views and produced one and the same reading in different places in different manners. Like this many diverse development of thoughts are found in the Upanişads but it can be said by making their classification that the first is the party of Ācārya Sankara, the second is that of Madhva, and all the remaining Acāryas are in the third group.
Sankara, not concending that there is any really real existence except Brahman, explains the multiplicity of individual souls as experienced in practical life in terms of Māyā (Illusion) or Avidyāśakti (power of Nescience). This power also is not independent of the Brahman. Hence, according to his view, the mutual distinction between Soul and Brahman, is not real°7 (tāttvika). Madhva maintained an opposite view to that of Ācārya Sankara in regard to Soul by asserting that it is not imaginary but is real, and it is also distinct from the Brahman. In this way the view of Madhva finds place in the doctrine of infinite eternal Souls.8* Bhāskara99 and all other Ācāryas actually accept Soul, but as a modification, an effect or a part of the Brahman. The modification, effect, or part, however, may be due to the power of the Brahman, but they are not at all illusory. Thus, the development on the concept of Soul went on progressing in the thinking of different Ācāryas.
The current of the Vedantic thought regarding the concept of Soul has continued in the traditions of aiming at Monism, namely, Kevalādvaita (Absolute Monism), Satyopādhi-advaita, Višiştādvaita, Dvaitadvaita, Avibhāgādvaita, Suddhādvaita and Acintabhedābheda, and it is also finding support in the form of Dvaitavāda (Dualism).
Soul is nothing independent of the Brahman. (It is nothing at all). Hence, according to Sankara, the (multiplicity of) individual Souls and their mutual difference are both unreal. Sankara, admitting the Brahman to be the only real Reality, explains the multiplicity of individual souls as also the multiplicity (i. e. the multiplicity exhibited in) the world in terms of Māyā (Illusion). Hence, according to his view, individual soul is not independent and real entity. It is rather #mere appearance of the really real Brahman, an appearance due to the association of Māyā, Avidyā (Nescience) or Antahkarana (internal organ). Even this appearance ceases to be there with the individual soul's realization of its own identity with the Brahman, Absolute Monism has to make a possibility of mutual distinction of individual souls just as it has to make a possibility of the relation of Soul with the Brahman because of there being only pure and undivided consciousness as its objective. Besides this, it has to determine the transmigration of Soul from body to body in order to effect rebirth. At the root, when there is only one transcendental reality and many kinds of distinction are to be made, then its only way is left to take the support of Māyā or Avidyā.
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