Jain Philosophy

Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Agamoday Samiti

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The Shruta Dharma inquires into the nature of nine principles, six kinds of living beings and four states of existance. Of the nine principles, the first is soul. According to the Jain view soul is that element which knows, thinks and feels. It is in fact the divine element in the living being. The Jain thinks that phenomena of knowledge, feeling, thinking and willing are conditioned on something, and that that something must be as real as anything can be. This "soul" is in a certain sense different from knowledge and in another sense identical with it. So far as one's knowledge is concerned, the soul is identical with it, but so far as some one else's knowledge is concerned, it is different from it. The true nature of soul is right knowledge, right faith and right conduct. The soul, so long as it is subject to transmigration, is undergoing evolution, and ivolution.
The second principle is non-soul. It is not simply what we understand by matter, but it is more than that. Matter is a term contrary to soul. But nonsoul is its contradictory. Whatever is not soul is nonsoul.
principles are but the diffecombination and separa
The rest of the nine rent states produced by the tion of soul and non-soul, The third principle is merit; that on account of which a The fourth principle is demerit; that which a being suffers from misery.
being is happy.
On account of The fifth is the