Istopadesa The Golden Discourse

Author(s): Vijay K Jain
Publisher: Vikalp

Page 24

Verse 2
with consciousness (upayoga) as its differentia; it is devoid of any corporeal substance. It has a form slightly less than that of the final, superior body and resides at the summit of the universe; it is not of any other shape or size, and is not to be found anywhere else. Its existence is eternal; it is free from any future liability of transmigration. It is possessed of eight supreme qualities; it is devoid of the influence of eight kinds of karmas.
So long as the soul is associated with karmic bondage and it remains in the company of the non-self, which includes the body, it is not possible to make these four predications about it.
There is difference between the body and the soul as these are perceived by different types of cognition. The body is known through the instruments of senses and the soul is known by selfexperience. The soul has consciousness (cetană) and is incorporeal (amūrta), whereas the body has no consciousness and is corporeal. In its worldly state a soul is always accompanied by a body. This perhaps is the cause of confusion about the relationship between the two.
The term body, in association with the soul, implies the gross body (audarika śarīra) as of human beings and plants and animals, transformable body (vaikriyika sarira) as of celestial and infernal beings, the projectable or assimilative body (ahāraka śarīra) as originating in a saint of the sixth stage in order to resolve a doubt or to ascertain the nature of a minute object or to dispel non-restraint, the luminous (electric) body (taijasa śarīra) which is the cause of brilliance or which is caused by brilliance, and the karmic body (kārmaṇa śarīra) which is composed of subtle, very fine karmic matter. The last two bodies are a constant companion of the soul in all its transmigrating wanderings and are destroyed only at the time of final emancipation. Though karma is the cause of all types of bodies, the last is the storehouse of karmic matter arising due to the effects of all our actions, desires and passions, virtuous or evil.
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