Jain Journal 1969 10

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 14

OCTOBER, 1969
material prāṇas are the sense organs (indriyas), mind (mana), organ of speech (vāk), body (kāya), age (āyu) and respiration (śvāsocchvāsa). Collectively, the material prānas aid the functioning of the body and also the imperfect or vibhāva vyañjana paryāya, as windows or channels for the existence of empirical consciousness. Consciousness (cetanatva) is the supreme attribute and consequently the possessor of consciousness, viz., soul (jiva) is the supreme substance in the universe.
Soul and matter are the two primary substances in the drama of life and death. The relation between the spirit and the non-spirit is responsible for the worldly existence. Apart from the gross body there is a subtle body which serves as a link between the spiritual and the nonspiritual. This subtle body is the kārmaņa sarira of the Jainas. The soul is pure and perfect in its intrinsic nature. It is due to its relation with karma that the soul comes to have passions. The rise of passions in the soul in turn causes fresh bondage of karmas. Every change in the soul synchronises with the corresponding change in the karmas and vice versa. The historical beginning of this process and relation is unknown, because the spirit and the non-spirit are uncreated (eternal) entities. And the relation being beginingless, the problem which of the two--the passions and the karmas-comes first does not arise. There are eight main types and one hundred and forty-eight sub-types of karmas. The eight main types are jñānāvaraņiya (knowledge-covering), darśanāvaraṇīya (perception-covering), mohaniya (deluding), antarāya (obstructing), vedaniya (feeling-producing), āyuşya (age-determining), nāma (body-making) and gotra (status-fixing). The first four are obscuring or ghātı karma because they obscure the nature of the soul. Absence of these eight karmas means the soul is pure and shines with the eight principal special attributes.
Vyañjana paryāya functions rhythmically and perfectly in all the omniscient souls embodied or disembodied and in all free elementary particles of matter. This is syabhāva vyañjana paryāya. It functions non-rhythmically and imperfectly in all the mundane souls and molecules of matter animate and inanimate. This is vibhāva vyañjana paryāya.
Its function pertaining to the imposition of wave pattern in the substances thereby exercising control over the shape (äkāra), special expansion and contraction (pradeśa), is termed dravya vyañjana paryāya. Its accomplishment in the maintenance of the special attributes of the substance is termed guņa vyañjana paryāya. Taking into consideration svabhāva, vibhāva, dravya and guna these four types in respect of jīva