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Subhash Chand Jain : A Logical Perspectiveofkarma Doctrine
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of mind, body and speech (mana, kāva, and vacana), respectively. Thus the total number of vitalities is ten: five vitalities of senses; three forces of activities; respiration; and age. Plants have only four vitalities, namely, touch, body, respiration, and age. Human beings, birds, and animals have all ten vitalities.
Though the manifestation of the four fundamental qualities of the soul is limited in mundane souls, they have potential for unlimited manifestation of these qualities. Therefore, the aim of a living being is to modify his or her soul that is associated with matter to a soul that has no association with matter, i.e., to modify his/her ātmā to paramātmā. To achieve this aim, a living being has to understand the purpose of association of matter with soul.
Purpose of Association: Each body has an association with a soul. The body is inade of matter and the purpose of the body is selfevident. Can there be another purpose of association of matter with soul? The solution is hidden in the answer of another question that is related to the difference between the two souls; one, pure soul; and the other, mundane soul which is in transmigration for a rebirth leaving the old body and taking on a new body. Both souls cannot be identified by sense-organs. The pure soul is paramātmā and has no association with matter. If it assuined that the mundane soul also has no association with matter, i.e. it is a pure soul, it cannot incarnate. Hence a mundane soul is not a pure soul and must be having association of subtle material aggregates which cannot be identified by sense-organs. What can be the purpose of their association with the soul? Is it possible to make a presupposition that the subtle material aggregates accumulate some vital knowledge? On the basis of the state-of-the-art of modern computers that can store gigantic data on a tiny chip and on the supposition that subtle material aggregates are much finer than the subatomic particles utilized in computers, it seems logical to assume true the presupposition that these subtle material aggregates are capable to store unlimited amount of information.
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