Istopadesa The Golden Discourse

Author(s): Vijay K Jain
Publisher: Vikalp

Page 25

Istopadeśa - The Golden Discourse
The kārmaņa śarīra is the compound arising from the union or fusion of spirit and matter and is subject to modification from time to time.
Every organism or a samsārī jīva, thus, is an organic unity of two distinct entities, soul (jīva) and matter (pudgala). The entire universe is full of molecules of fine matter, technically called vargaņā, that possess the capacity for transforming themselves into karmic matter. Through the disturbance caused to the soul by its modifications, these molecules are attracted and get bound with the soul as karmic matter. The soul and the karmic matter have distinct characteristics of their own. The karmic matter, by itself, does not destroy the attributes of the soul, nor does the soul destroy the attributes of the karmic matter. There is no mutual relation of the destroyer and destroyed between the two. These are not mutually hostile or inimical. A crystal, which is pure, does not alter its colour by itself, but when in proximity with a coloured (say, red) object seems to acquire a red tinge; similarly, the soul is pure and does not acquire modifications like attachment by itself. But due to dispositions like attachment, its purity gets tainted.
In discussing the relation between the soul and the karmic matter, Jainism makes an important distinction between the material or substantial cause (upādāna kartā) and the auxiliary or external cause (nimitta kartā). The Self is the substantial cause of psychical states and matter is the substantial cause of organic states. And yet psychical states and organic states are external causes of each other. One psychical state is produced by an immediately preceding psychical state, and determined externally by an organic state. In like manner, one organic state is determined by immediately preceding organic state and conditioned externally by a psychical state. There is similar parallelism that explains the causal inter-relation between the Self and the body. The Self is the substantial cause of an emotion while karmic matter is the