Jain Journal 1972 07

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

Page 28

The Philosophy of the Jainas
ELIZABETH SHARPE
Jainism denies the Advaitism-one-ness, the spirit alone being real of the Upanisads.
It posits duality that the universe, as man knows it, is divided into two main categories: life-jiva, and non-life-ajiva; spirit and matter; and matter, it insists, is as eternal as spirit and as real.
Life (or soul, in Jaina ethics) by itself is an intangible thing, and its presence is only determined by the manifestation of itself in a material body.
The manifestation of life (or soul) are consciousness, sense-activity and respiration each life has a fixed period in the body it takes, determined by higher life before contact with that body, or not determined.
There are many souls in the universe: each retaining its individuality which is never entirely destroyed or merged into a higher being, unless its rhythm ebbs too low, when it may be annihilated in the sense of losing its identity.
There are two classes of these embodied souls: the immobile (sthāvara) and the mobile (trasa).
The first class is again divided into five sections according to the material from which it is formed: earth, water, fire, air and vegetation.
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The last is counted the highest of this class but all of them have only one sense, that of touch.