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are declared to be the nature of self. "58 The real self is the unitary substratum of which these are empirical modifications.59
KARMA THE MATERIAL BASIS..
It is clear from the above that the Jainas have tried very hard to preserve their fundamental non-absolutistic attitude with regard to the conception of the nature of karman. Karman, for them is neither absolutely identical with Pudgala nor completely distinct and different from it. This standpoint is not shared by the other systems of Indian philosophy. The Nyaya-Vaišeṣikas, no doubt, holds creation to be the product of the union between matter and spirit, God functioning as the efficient cause. Merit and demerit do belong to the soul but again only to create the conditions of bondage. This leads to a tragic situation that the soul, being immutable and obiquitous remains unrelated with everything either moral or material. This is the consequence resulting from admitting absolute difference between matter and conciousness. The case of Sankhya-Yoga or even Vedanta is no better. The Puruşa or Brahman is said to be an absolutely immutable and incorruptible principle of pure consciousness. The world-process or the karma process belong to the realm of Prakṛti or Māyā with the result that in case of Sankhya it leads to a hopeless irreconcilable dualism between Puruşa and Prakṛti and in the case of Vedanta to mayavada.
The Buddhists too suffer from one-sidedness, when they regard ignorance to be the enveloping cover of right-knowledge. The world of matter, which is also the stage on which actions are done, cannot affect the consciousness; only ignorance which is formless affects it. This means that Buddhists, at least some of them, fail to relate actions with consciousness. However, for the Yogacara, there is no such problem of relationship between the material and the spiritual because for them everything is spiritual. The Cārvākas present a position
58 Ibid., 47.
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59 Ibid., 48.
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