Jain Journal 1970 10

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

Page 31

74
JAIN JOURNAL
Jivastikāya-Soul :
Jiva is the self, theultimate reality. It exists in two states (a) state of bondage and (b) state of emancipation. In both these states its existence is real. Freedom does not mean total cessation nor is bondage merely empirical. The emancipated self is the same old self which was in bondage. It is a qualitative change and not total cessation. Freedom means freedom from passions only.
Emancipation presupposes corruption of the self in the state of worldly existence. This corruption is due to soul's beginningless association with matter. The soul is pure and perfect in its intrinsic nature and it is only due to its association with matter that it comes to generate passions.
It is beyond the scope of this article to study the problems arising out of the modus operandi of karma comprising of the processes of attraction, assimilation, rise, fruition, and disassociation of the kārmic matter. Suffice here to say that the kārmic matter attracted by the vibrations (yoga) of the soul, mixes with it much in the same way as milk mixes with water. Due to the presence of passions in the soul, the karmic matter is intimately bound with it. The stronger the passions the lengthier and intenser are the duration and fruition of bondage. The karma does not however yield fruit as soon as it is bound but comes into rise in order to give its fruit after a lapse of a certain period. After yielding the fruit it is exhausted and is dissociated from the soul.
There are two kinds of fruition (i) auspicious or benvolent called punya and (ii) inauspicious or malicious called pāpa. Worldly happiness apparently resulting from good health, high status, riches and abundance is ultimately the result of punya and nothing else. Similarly, the suffering and miseries apparently resulting from ill-health, low status, poverty and dearth are ultimately the result of pāpa only. Now it is not difficult to see that both punya and pāpa are of material origin and are therefore, ajiva, i.e., non-self, and emancipation must be freedom from the both. The point to be borne in mind is that auspicious karma is as much a hindrance to emancipation as the other kind. 1
Mokşa literally means freedom. As stated above freedom means freedom from passions; freedom from the cycles of birth and death, freedom from the worldly existence, but not total cessation. It is the pure and perfect state of the self, the same old self which was once in bondage. Process of regeneration is complete and irreversible. The last particle