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96
JAIN JOURNAL
The crucial point from the point of view of this paper is that after attaining liberation in this life the liberated individual gathers no new karma, though outwardly he may seem to be acting.
What is the corresponding situation in Jainism? M. Hiriyanna describes the situation in Jainism thus :
The aim of life is to get oneself disentangled from karma. Like the generality of Indian systems, Jainism also believes in the soul's transmigration, but its conception of karma, the governing principle of transmigration, is unlike that of any other. It is conceived here as being material and permeating the jivas through and through and weighing them down to the mundane level. As heat can unite with iron and water with milk, so karma unites with the soul; and the soul so united with karma is called a soul in bondage.' As in so much of Hindu thought, here also the ideal lies beyond good and evil, so that virtue as well as vice is believed to lead to bondage, though the way in which each binds is different. If through proper self-discipline all karma is worked out and there arises 'the full blaze of omniscience' in the jiva, it becomes free. When at last it escapes at death from the bondage of the body, it rises until it reaches the top of the universe described above as lokākāśa; and there it rests in peaceful bliss for ever. It may not care for worldly affairs thereafter, but it is certainly not without its own influence, for it will serve ever afterwards as an example of achieved ideal to those that are still struggling towards it. During the period intervening between enlightenment and actual attainment of godhead--for all liberated souls are gods-the enlightened jīva dwells apart from fresh karmic influence. An enlightened person may lead an active life, but his activity does not taint him as even unselfish activity, according to Jainism, does in the case of others. During this interval the devotee, as in Buddhism, is termed an arhant, and he becomes a siddha or 'the perfected' at actual liberation. It will be seen from this that the stage of arhant-ship corresponds to the Hindu ideal of jivanmukti and the Buddhistic one of nirvāna.5
For more detailed descriptions of the jivanmukta in Advaita Vedanta see S. Radhakrishnan, The Brahmasutra (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1960), pp. 215-218; Sankara's commentary on Brahmasutra 1.4.15 and 19; Surendranath Dasgupta, op. cit., p. 246 ff. ; V. H, Date, Vedanta Explained : Sankara's Commentary on the Brahmasutra (Bombay : Booksellers Publishing Co., 1959),
pp. 525-6 ; etc. 6 M. Hiriyana, op. cit., pp. 168-169. Emphasis added.
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