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JAIN JOURNAL : Vol-XXXV, No. 1 July 2000 Metaphysically, Mahāvira has posited the existence of an infinite number of souls which characteristically possess functional traits powered by cetana (consciousness) and virya (energy). He has thus declared that the existence of the universe or of the own self must never be denied as denial of the one leads to the other. The self is the knower and knower is the self, both terms being synonymous. Knowledge flows via the self and the self comprehends it through the process. The Acārānga, the earliest text of the Jaina scriptures compiled by the Ganadharas of Mahāvira in the sixth B.C.E., deals with ātāvādi-a Prākrit term (Sk. ātmavāda). Professor J. Parikh observes that the word vāda in the text is not to be taken in the sense of dialogue or debate' as it is employed in the compound meaning of belief in a doctrine that to be practiced rightly.3
Thus an unstatic temporal model under a structural mechanism ātmā or the self is constructed in dialectical relationship in the Jaina doctrinal and philosophical theory of jīva and ajīva-soul and nonsoul. In other words, the structural mechanism of the functioning of soul in Jainism rests on the fundamentals of dualism, ontology and soteriology. The theory of soul as preached by Mahavira to his chief disciples-the ganadharas-has been thoroughly studied by later Jaina thinkers and saint scholars.
General Jaina View of Cosmos
The Jaina material universe is of uncreated nature and everlasting, and is composed of six constituents - jiva and ajiva, the latter consisting of pudgala (matter), dharma (water), adharma (earth) and kala (time) technically termed as dravyas in Jainism. Though dravya word has been translated as substance, Harisatya Bhattacharya aptly refers it as “Reals” by distinguishing the cardinal principles of Jaina philosophy and metaphysics from the superficial ethics and ritual.5
Thejiva is the living soul, regarded as pervading the whole organism and the body constitutes as it were its garb. The soul therefore is body's animating principle. There is the Jaina notion that the subtle substance of the soul mingles with the particles of karma, and the
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Ibid. Joharimal Parikh, Philosophy of Ācārāngasūtra in Aspects of Jainology, Vol. III, p. 174-175. Dr. Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies of India, Princeton University Press, 1989, pp. 270-271. K.B. Jindal, Reals in Jainism in Jainthology, ed. Ganesh Lalwani, Jain Bhavan Publication, Calcutta, 1991.
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