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Upayoga or conscious activity is the characteristic of the soul, but this upayoga is known to be different according to its different degrees of excellence and accordingly the souls too are infinite in number. If the soul were one, it would be all-pervading and if so there could not possibly be any pleasure or pain or bondage or emancipation as is true of the allpervading ether. It would not also be the doer, enjoyer, thinker or even transmigratory. That which is all this, is also not all-pervading, e. g. Devadatta. Hence the souls are infinite in number (1583-1584).
There are. infinite souls of the type of nāraka (hellish), tiryak (lower) etc. and they are all unhappy. As compared with these, few souls' are happy. Innumerable souls are in bondage and few have been emancipated. If they were all one this one soul would not be happy or liberated as it would be unhappy and in bondage to a far greater extent. If a man is diseased all over his body excepting a little finger would you call him healthy or happy? So also, if a man is nailed all over and only his finger is free would you call him free? This shows that the souls have to be accepted as many (1585).
The souls may be many, but can they not be ubiquitous or all-pervading as the Naiyāyikas and others regard them ? No. The characteristics of the soul are found only within the expanse of the body and so can exist only in the body.. It is of the same size as the body. Or to put it the other way round, the characteristics of the soul are not found outside the body, so it too cannot exist outside the body as a jar cannot exist in cloth. A thing is existent only where its qualities are found. Hence the soul resides in the body and is not ubiquitous. It being so, it stands to reason that the soul is the doer, enjoyer, etc. and that the souls can experience pleasure, pain, bondage, emancipation, transmigration (1586-1587).
? Mahāvīra interprets the Vedic passage Indrabhūti has in mind in the light of the latter's view. (See Gathā 1553). ‘Vijñānaghana evaitebhyah.... This passage, Indrabhūti believes,
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