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Kundakunda: The Pravacanasāra 125 of karman (and thus bondage), but the meeting of the two, i.e. of the jīva's condition, or mode at the time, with the molecules (pudgala-skandhas). However, as the commentary (Tattvadīpikā) makes clear, it is the skandhas which have the potential to transform into the karman state (karmabhāva), even without the jīva side of the equation. So the soul (puruşa) is not the agent of the karman-state of material masses (pudgalapiņda). Thus the creation of karmic bondage is defined here as the transformation of material molecules by 'contact with the modifications of a jīva, with 'contact' and transformation, and not the jīva, being the instrumental factors as such. Clearly, the particular modification of the jiva also plays a crucial role, one we shall consider later, although it is not emphasised here.2 It is this material, transformed into karman, which goes to make up the various bodies the jīva is bound into in its various births. However, as the commentary reminds us, the jiva, since it is not material, cannot be - and therefore should not be identified with - any of these bodies.4
The soul's characteristics are then enumerated:
Know that the jiva, whose quality is consciousness (cetanā), is without taste, without form ('colour'), without odour; it is unmanifest (i.e. cannot be touched), without sound, beyond the range of a distinguishing or characteristic mark, and without describable configuration. [Pravacanasāra 2:80]
This is clearly a description of the jīva in its unbound or pure state (i.e. in Kundakunda's terms it is the niscaya view
I na pudgalapiņdānām karmatvakartā puruṣo 'sti - TD on Pravac. 2:77.
2 What is meant by 'contact' in these circumstances, and thus the reason for its being placed between inverted commas, will be clarified below.
3 Pravac. 2:78. 4 TD on 2:79.
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