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The emancipated soul is luminous by its own natural light, because it is free from all the factors that obscure light, like the moon. It is said : "Sthitaḥ śītāmśuvaj ji vaḥ prakřtyä bhāvasuddhyā, candrikā vac ca vijñānam tadā varanam abhravat." --Yogadrştisamuccaya, 181 (The jīva in its naturally pure state is like the moon; its consciousness is like the moonlight; and its obscuration is like the clouds). The emancipated soul enjoys unobstructed bliss, since all its afflictions have been dispelled, like a perfectly healthy man who has got rid of his ailment. It has been said : . Sa vyābādhābhāvāt sarvajñatvāc ca bhavati paramasukhī; vyābā lhābhāvo’tra svacchasya jñasya paramasukham. ( Tattvārtha-bhāșyaţikā, p. 318, Part II) – The emancipated soul is perfectly happy as there are no obstructions and it is omniscient; the absence of obstructions is itself the highest happiness of the pure knower (1992).
A point may be raised here; The emancipated soul has no sense-organ, so it, like ākāśa, must be non-knower. But it is not so, for thuis one could also say that, like akāśa, emancipated soul is ajīva (non-soul), and in that case the hetu 'because it has no sense-organs' would be a fallacious one-- viruddha (contradictory), as it denies jīvatva to the emancipated soul which is recognised as a soul by all. The opponent may say that logically he is even prepared to go to the extent of denying jivatva (soulness) to the emancipated soul; because this contingency would go against Lord Mahāvīra's position also and the responsibility of refuting this would devolve on him. Mahāvira answers this by saying that he had posed this contingency only as a retort to the opponent's statement that the emancipated soul should be a non-knower, because it has no sense-organs; if so it should be non-soul also. But, as a matter of fact, the emancipated soul is neither ignorant, nor ajiva (non-soul). The soul in the state of emancipation cannot become a non-soul, since the natural
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