Jain Journal 1974 04

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

Page 80

218
JAIN JOURNAL
Here we meet with animistic ideas which, in this form, are peculiar to Jainism. They probably go back to a remote period, and must have prevailed in classes of Indian society which were not influenced by the more advanced ideas of the Brahmanas.
Different from matter and material things are the souls (jīva, lit. ‘lives'). There is an infinite number of souls ; the whole world is literally filled with them. The souls are substances, and as such eternal ; but they are not of a definite size since they contract or expand according to the dimensions of the body in which they are incorporated for the time being. Their characteristic mark is intelligence, which may be obscured by extrinsic causes, but never destroyed.
Souls are of two kinds : mundane (sarnsărin), and liberated (mukta). Mundane souls are the embodied souls of living beings in the world and still subject to the Cycle of Birth ; liberated souls will be embodied no more ; they have accomplished absolute purity ; they dwell in the state of perfection at the top of the universe, and have no more to do with worldly affairs ; they have reached nirvāņa (nivștti or mukti). Metaphysically the difference between the mundane and the liberated soul consists in this, that the former is entirely filled by subtle matter, as, a bag is filled with sand, while the latter is absolutely pure and free from any material alloy.
The defilement of the soul takes place in the following way. Subtle matter ready to be transformed into karma pours into the soul ; this is called 'influx' (asrava). In the usual state of things a soul harbours passions (kaşāya) which act like a viscous substance and retain the subtle matter coming into contact with the soul ; the subtle matter thus caught by the soul enters, as it were, into a chemical combination with it ; this is called the binding (bandha) (of karma-matter). The subtle matter 'bound' or amalgamated by the soul is transformed into the 8 kinds of karma, and forms a kind of subtle body (kārmanaśarīra) which clings to the soul in all its migrations and future births, and determines the individual state and lot of that particular soul. For, as each particular karma has been caused by some action, good, bad, or indifferent, of the individual being in question, so this karma, in its turn, produces certain painful, or indifferent conditions and events which the individual in question must undergo. Now, when a particular karma has produced its effect in the way described, it (i.e., the particular karma matter) is discharged or purged from the soul. This process of 'purging off' is called nirjarā. When this process goes on without interruption, all karma-matter will, in the end, be discharged from the soul ; and the