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GRADATION OF SOULS AND STAGES OF OMNISCIENCE 89
This self, which has realised its oneness, is the beautiful ideal and absolutely free from bondage.74 This description of the self very much resembles that of the Upanişadic and Advaitic Brahman or Atman. But since, it is not the only reality in the whole world, it falls short of the status of the Upanişadic Ātman. From the real point of view, the soul is not bound, not touched, not other than itself but steady, same and not combined." 5 Here the knowledge of the knower is also the knowledge of the known.76
The classification cf the transcendental spirit into external (Bahirātman), internal (Antarātman) and absolute (Paramātman) is very significant. These are, in fact, only three stages of the progress of soul. This characterisation roughly corresponds to the method of Arundhati Nyāya or Sakha Candra Nyāya adopted in the Upanişad and Vedānta literature to point out the subtle nature of the soul by depicting the spiritual ladder starting from the food-sheath (Annamaya-Koşu) and leading to the blissful-sheath (ājanda-maya-kosa)?? or from the crude doctrine of soul as son (putrātmavāda) to the Advaitic conception of Self as "pure, consciousness, eternal, free etc."7 8 Similarly, the Bahirātman represents the materialistic view of self, in as much as, it is identified with the gross-physical body and other material objects of enjoyment.79 It remains engaged in sensual and carnal pleasures of life80 and is desirous of getting material enjoyment here and hereafter and so is necessarily under the fear of death.81 In the next stage, naturally, the soul will transcend this physical barrier and
74 Ibid., 3. 75 Ibid., 14.
76 Ibid., 16. 77 Tait. Up. II. 1-7 (Bralunānanda Valli). 78 Sadānanda, Vedanta Sara, 123-135. 79 Pujyapäda, Samadhi Tantra, 7,11,13, etc.; Cp. Kundakunda, Sama ya
sära, 25; Yogindu, Paramātma-Prakaśa, I. 13. 80 Pujyapāda, Ibid., 7-55 (Samadhi Tantra). 81 Ibid., 42, 76; Yoga Sāra (of Yogindu), 10; Rāja Malla, Adhyatma
Kamala-Mārtanda, III. 12, JCO-12
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