Introduction to Jainism

Author(s): Rudi Jansma, Sneh Rani Jain
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

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INTRODUCTION TO JAINISM
experience of action, which is experienced by all living beings; 3) experience of fruition of karmas.98 The number of souls remains the same forever - whether they are in any form of embodiment and obscured, or liberated. In the Jain approach the souls always remain individuals, but each soul is in its essence universal, because it has the faculties to know all, and possesses of universal intelligence.
Though our human souls, as well as all others, which reside in the forms of elemental, mineral, plant, animal, and human bodies or those of hell-beings and heavenly beings, are perfect by nature, they are obscured in such a way that their full glory is unable to express itself -- like soot on the glass of an oil lamp. This obscuration is due to karma. Therefore the Jain doctrine of karma is intimately connected with the doctrine on liberation of the soul, which means purification from all karmic matter particles. (see Chapter 9.
There are nine fundamental concepts (padārthas) involved in the doctrine of karma: jīva (soul or life); ajīva (non-soul or not-life); virtue, vice; influx or inflow of karmic matter particles;19 stopping it;40 bondage;"! purging of attached karmas;*- and, finally, liberation." The soul, through vice, causes the inflow of non-ensouled karmic particles and subtle matter which then cause the bondage of the soul. Through virtue or meritorious action the inflow of karmic particles can be stopped and the particles purged, so that the soul is finally liberated. In Jain literature, especially in the Tattvārthadhigama Sūtra, 44 these concepts and the types of karma are worked out in minute detail. On this the whole system of Jain ethics and the path towards liberation is built.
The passions in particular the cause the inflow of subtle matter particles from all directions, which then stick to the soul like "dust to an oily cloth,” as the Jains say, though no doubt this is a very subtle and precise process. Karmic inflow is caused not only by passions, but also by four other types of thought-activities: delusion, 46 lack of self-control, inadvertence,48 and activities of body, mind and speech.49 Each of these, of course, has its subdivisions. As soon as the