________________
No hard op
AN EPITOME OF JAINISM.
activities of nature. And this superphysical position des principle is our soul-substance. But such tween spirit and matter. an admission of the soul-substance as
distinct and apart from dead dull pudgal involves dualism of spirit and matter - Jiva ( sila ) and Ajiva ( 79a ). Indeed,
it does involve, for spirit is as self-existent a reality as matter itself is. But the Jains
say there is no hard opposition between them as would render them incapable of being united in such manner as we find in the case of milk and water. For the attributes of matter are not absolutely contradictory to the attributes of the soul. Matter is only matter in relation to what is not matter i. e., spirit and so is the case with the spirit itself, and thus there being an organic unity between the two, they stand to each other in relation of object and subject in as much as if there were any absolute distinction between them, a distinction which by its very nature would be self-contradictory, it would cut off all connection between the things it distinguished. It would annihilate the relation implied in the distinction itself. An absolute difference, teach the Victors, is
276
