________________
conception of the Sum mum Bonum.
taught in Buddhistic philosophy, but on the
other hand, enters again into a state of The Jain bondage, though it may be somewhat
different from the present one, to feel the consequences he earns or has earned, and there is no escape from this cycle of birth and rebirth, till he is able to shake off by his own moral endeavour, the pudgal particles clinging round his soul on every occasion he acts. This, bondage is also regarded as something alien to the soul, it being caused by its own misdoings and it can therefore regain its original state of liberation, by developing in full the capabilities which are now lying veiled ordormant in him. The Sumnium Bonum of life is here not the gratuitous enjoyment of the present in utter disregard of the future, as Buddhists hold ; on the other hand, it is the sacrifice of the present to the future, the sacrifice of flesh to enter into a life of spirit, the annahilation of passion to enjoy a state of serene bliss, that forms the keynote of Jainism. In short, the yearning after a state of freedom from bondage, a state of bliss and beatitude and omniscience, attainable after much moral
468