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CHAPTER-III
BIOLOGY IN JAIN SCRIPTURES: A CRITIQUE
NATURE OF LIFE - SCRIPTURAL VIEW OF LIFE
SOUL AND BODY
According to Jains, every living organism is an organịc unity of two distinct entities — A non-material conscious principle called soul and the material or physical body animated by the soul. While the soul is consciousness (cetanā), non-corporeal (amūrta) and imperceptive to senses (arūpi), the body, by itself, is devoid of consciousness (acetana), corporeal (mūrta) and perceptible to senses (rūpi), because it is made up of molecules of matter. Again according to Jains, there is not one but two different bodies. The gross or physical body that we actually perceive is constituted by ordinary matter, nourished by matter ingested in the form of food. It is changing every moment, degenerates with ageing and is given up by the soul after a certain period of time, i.e. at the end of the lifespan. The soul itself, being eternal and indestructible, transmigrates to begin another life.
Besides this gross body there is for every soul a subtle body which is called kārmaņa śarīra. This body is also constituted by molecules of matter which are quite different from ordinary organic or inorganic matter. They are so much more subtle that they are massless. This subtle body cannot be given up but remains as an inalienable appendage of the soul during its transmigration and metempsychosis. This is transcended only when the soul attains disembodied emancipation which is its pure and perfect state. But in the meantime in its mundane state the soul undergoes metempsychosis from one species of organism to another. And the birth and rebirth of an individual soul in a particular species at a particular time and in a particular place is neither arbitrary nor accidental but the very precise result of the individual's karman which again is the result of its actions in the past life or lives.
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