Jain Journal 1979 07

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

Page 16

Development of the Jaina Concept of Soul
The Acaranga uses the terms cittavat, jīva, ātman, etc. for the animate, sentient, living or conscious substance, i.e. soul. The inanimate substance is signified by the terms acitta, acetana, etc. The words prāṇa, bhūta and sattva have also been used to indicate the living being. In the course of time the terms jiva and ajiva were generally adopted to denote the living and non-living substances respectively.
The Acārānga defines soul (atman) as knower.1 Souls are of two types worldly and liberated. The liberated souls are devoid of all material forms, qualities and associations.2 The worldly souls or living beings are of two kinds : mobile-bodied (trasa) and immobile-bodied (sthavara). The immobile-bodied souls are of five types: earth-bodied, water-bodied, fire-bodied, air-bodied and plant-bodied. These six varieties of living beings are known as saḍjīvanikāyas in the Acārānga, etc. Since the living beings transmigrate from one body to the next, it is implied that they are body-sized, i.e. equal in extent to the bodies they occupy. In other words, they undergo contraction and expansion. This is the position of the conscious substance in the Acārānga as well as in the Sutra-Kṛtānga.
MOHANLAL MEHTA
The Bhagavati defines soul as the sole possessor of cognition (upayoga). It classifies the world of living beings into five types: one-sensed, two-sensed, three-sensed, four-sensed and five-sensed. The immobile-bodied souls constitute the first type, whereas the mobilebodied beings form the remaining four types. To give an exhaustive account of soul the Bhagavati resorts to a number of points of investigation, such as cognition, activity, belief, karma, body, region, class, substance, mode, time, temperament, instinct, indeterminate cognition, determinate cognition, vice, virtue, human endeavour, etc. They appear in so many forms on so many occasions. No arguments are advanced to corroborate the contentions.
1 Acaranga, 191.
2 Ibid., 176.
3
Bhagavati, p. 149 a.