Gandhi Before Gandhi

Author(s): Bipin Doshi, Priti Shah
Publisher: Jain Academy Educational Research Center Promotion Trust Mumbai

Page 90

GANDHI BEFORE GANDHI
the minutest animalcule has. Plants have life is a known fact for Jains since last 2500 yrs.
human faculties, and from that experience we derive conclusions and think that these conclusions apply to all substance. There are substances which cannot be perceived by the senses, Such a substance, which cannot be seen, heard, tasted, smelled or touched, is a substance which need not occupy space, and need not have any tangibility, but it exist, although it may not have any form..
What is the origin of Soul?
Sight is an impression made on the nerves of the eyes by vibrations sent forth from the object perceived and this impression which we call is sight, but dead body can not see nor it can have any knowledge of what is perceived. It is that consciousness which knows and that is soul.
Jain philosophy also teaches that there are infinite souls, all eternal & living from time immemorial without beginning in some embodied state, evolving from the lower to the higher condition. All non liberated souls are bonded in various types of physical body right from one sense organisms to five sense organisms. There are also beings which are celestial and hellish. The rebirth of these souls depends on the sum total of its deeds of past lives.
This being the soul's nature, what is its origin? Everything can be looked upon from two standpoints, the substance and the manifestation. If the state of the soul itself is to be taken into consideration, that state has its beginning and its end. The state of the soul as living in the human body had a beginning at birth and will have an end at death, but it is a beginning and end of the state, not of the thing itself. The soul taken as a substance is eternal; taken as a state, every state has its beginning and end. So this beginning of a state implies that before this beginning there was another state of the soul. Nothing can exist unless it exists in some state previously. The state may not be permanent, but the thing must have a state at all times. Therefore before the present state the thing must have a state at all times. If therefore the present state of the soul had a beginning, it had another state before the beginning of this state, and after the end of his state it will have another state. So the future state is something that comes out of or is the result of the present state. In conclusion the souls are eternal but their modifications are ever changing
The word-Karma in Jain perspective.
The Jain canonical books treat very elaborately the minutest divisions of the living beings, and their prophets have long before the discovery of the microscope, been able to tell how many organs of sense
Karma word in Jain philosophy carries a different meaning. The Karmas are particles of matter present in the whole universe in grossly visible and microscopically non visible forms. Now when soul performs any act he receives, binds or sheds off these particles. This process is like a television
89