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JAIN JOURNAL : Vol-XXXV, No. 1 July 2000 According to Jainism, the soul-inner-being-has a marathon life. Its right consciousness rhythm struggles to be on spiritual side. Ācārya Kundakunda has examined this consciousness rhythm and the journey of the soul in relation to its certain functional mechanisms. According to him, the exceptional duo- the body and the soul become involve in a very human symbol of an unexceptional dilemma: universal impulse toward independence and inter-dependence in order to distinguish from the ajīva effects. Ācārya Kundakunda has investigated into this emphatic predicament of the soul to separate itself from the material world. He has envisaged the struggle of the soul with its karmic shackles and to break it free in order to achieve its own nature, pure and free. With the wider understanding of its metaphysics, he has conceived a structural schema of things to the journey of the soul and its functional mechanism. In other words, the journey of the soul is about freeing from the material world safely with everlasting peace and bliss. In the schema of structural arrangement, Ācārya Kundakunda has postulated that soul charts its journey gradually by altering moves from the surreal shadings of the earthly sequences to the bright and natural hues of the climaxic frame of the Siddhahood, the finality conceived when the soul stops its rebirth.
Ācārya Kundakunda, who was one of notable saint scholars of his times and who had understandably a fuller knowledge of other of schools of thoughts that existed before him, has a total mastery in Jaina philosophy that entails soteriological aspects. In his work, the Pañcāstikāya," he has provided general attributes of the soul, as found in Jainism.
jivo thi havidi codhā uvayogavise sidho pahukațţā, bhoțțā ya dehmatho na hi mutho kammasamjutto Soul has life, consciousness; upayoga (manifest) through knowledge and perception; And is an own architect, doer; reaper, incorporeal and attached with Karma.
The Pravacanasāra provides further explanation : the soul in all its traikālika periods -of past, present and the future-will have life with prāna (bio-energy or essentials) consisting of five senses, three channels of activities, duration of life and respiration. Thus, the soul is fashioned by material substance. 10
9. Verse 27. 10. Dr. A.N. Upadhye, ed., Pravacanasāra, II. 54., Iñdiyapāno ya tadhā
balapano tahāya āupāņo ya / Anappanao jivānam homti pāņā te, Shrimad Rajacandra Ashrama, Agas, Gujrat 1984.
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