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Opposition
Immorality
Sri Harisatya Bhattacharyya
M.A., B.L., Ph.D.
The influx of the unpsychical forms (Karma) in the soul causes its bondage and makes life an immoral one. This is the crux of Lord Vira's teaching. Therefore, he took care, not only to describe the manner of the immoral material elements influencing the free nature of the soul (the Asrava), but also to show the cause of thwarting these immoral forces (the 'Samvara' and the 'Nirjarā') --in other words, the ways of slowly yet successfully, opposing those forces. In fact, this is the central theme of Lord Vira's teaching and for the matter of that of the Jaina philosophy and ethics.
The soul's bondage to material elements is not a superficial contact with them; so that if the goal of life be the complete emancipation of the self from the thraldom of these foreign influences, -it should never be forgotten that it is not an easy task. The Bandha in one of its as tects is described by the Jainas as the 'Prakrtibandha', indicating that in the state of bondage, the nature of the self is permeated by the material elements, through and through, - Pradeśa' by Pradeśa', as they call it. The extrication of the self from the foreign forces is necessarily an enormous affair and in the Indian systems of philosophy, its enorngity is fully recognised. The Vedic schools assert on the one hand that not a moment passes, in which Karma's or acts are not done and on the other, that one is bound to experience the fruits of those acts. The Karma's and their Fruitions go on multiplying,--making the Moksa more and more inattainable. To show, however,
that the final eradication of the Karma's, though difficult, is not impossible, the Vedic thinkers draw a distinction between Karma's, to the effect that (1) at a particular moment, some of the Karma's are actually yielding Fruits, (2) some of them are about to do so, (3) some lie in a potential state, and (4) some acts which are being presently done are to bear fruits in suitable future. It is said that the first two modes of the Karma cannot be avoided; their results must be experienced; and a person wanting to attain liberation in the shortest time possible, is only to hasten his experience of their fruitions by having recourse to such practices as the creation of the KayaVyüha' or a number of simultaneous bodies, in and through which he finishes his experience of these Karma-fruits within a very short time. The first and the second forms of the Karma's are thus to be done away with, only by enjoying their fruits. As regards the 'potential' Karma's as well as the Karma's that are being presently done, it is believed that their coming to actual fruition may be prevented, nay, destroyed, by moral practices. It is in this way that the final emancipation is said to be realisable, through the eradication of the accumulating and the accumulated Karma's.
The Jaina doctrine of the Karma and the possibility of the eradication of its effects from the soul need not be thought to be very much different from the doctrine of the Vedic school. The Jaina's emphatically assert that Moksa is inattainable so long as the least taint of Karma is left in the soul. The first step
