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THE DOCTRINE OF KARMA
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It is the basic principle of Jainism that every Jiva or soul is possessed of consciousness, and of upayoga comprising the powers of perception and of knowledge; it has no form but is the doer of all actions; it has the capacity to occupy the full dimensions of the body which embodies it: it is the enjoyer of the fruits of its actions and located in the changing universe; it has an inherent tendency to move upwards and is a Siddha in its state of perfection. From the popular point of view, it is possessed of the four prānas: the senses, power, span of life and respiration. From the real point of view the soul is identical with consciousness.
If these are the characteristics of Jiva as already explained in the previous chapter, how is it that a Jiva finds itself entangled in the Samsara suffering life and death, happiness and misery? In the world, only a few souls are in a state of comparative development and the rest of them are in forms and bodies which are blind to their real nature.
The answer to this enigma is to be found in the operation of Karmic matter which draws a veil over the natural qualities of the soul crippling their powers in varying degrees. Jainism starts with the premise that the soul is found entangled with Karma from eternity. It is the primary function of religion to stop the influx and mitigate the presence of Karma with the soul and to show the path of liberation and the methods through which the soul could achieve perfection.
What then is the nature of Karma ? In ordinary parlance Karma means action, deed or work. Sometimes, it means acts of ritualistic nature enjoined by the scriptures. In Jaina philosophy, it means a form of matter or pudgala. It is inert and lifeless. It is very fine and subtle. It cannot be perceived or discerned by any of our senses. It cannot be seen even with the most sensitive microscope, with the maximum magnifying capacity. It baffles all analysis at the hands of a chemist or physicist who th neither identify nor analyse it. It is millions of times finer and subtler than the waves of sound, light or electricity, or the electrons or
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