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pure essence and of its absolute otherness and freedom from all relations. In other words, it is possible to experience the state of Mokṣa even while living.
Q.5.0 It is said in scriptures that after his death, a man may, according to his actions, be reborn as an animal, a tree or even a stone. Is this a fact?
A.5.0 After death the soul leaves the body. It attains a state according to the merit it has earned through its actions. In that state it may be born even as a lower creature, or may have even to assume a body of earth and, devoid of the other four senses suffer the fruits of its Karma through the sense of touch alone. It does not mean, however, that it becomes pure stone or earth. The soul assumes a body of stone, but, even then, it exists as soul, though its existence is not manifest to us. Since in that condition soul does not possess other senses besides the touch sense, it is called Pṛthvi-kaya-jīva and it is Eka-indriya. In the course of time, the soul leaves such a body after it has enjoyed the fruits of its karmas and then the stone material exists merely as an magma of atoms and, because the soul has left it, does not possess the instincts of hunger, sex, fear and accumulation. In other words, the idea is not that stone which is pure matter, becomes a soul. It is in order to enjoy the fruits of those Karmas which, because of their hard nature, compels the soul to take on a body possessing Eka-indriya (only one sense), the sense of touch the other senses remaining unmanifest, that it is born in Pṛthvikāya (an earth-body); it does not, however, become pure earth or stone. The body is like a garment to the soul, and is not its
essence.
The answer to Q.6.0 is contained in the reply given above as also the answer to Q.7.0 which is that earth or stone as such cannot be the Kartas of any Karma. It is the soul which has entered them and lives in them that is the Karta of Karmas, and even so,
Pg.288 Gandhi & Jainism
