Jaina Concept of Omniscience

Author(s): Ramjee Singh
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 98

GRADATION OF SOULS AND STAGES OF OMNISCIENCE 85
tion of souls.50 It gives a detailed knowledge about them in their multifarious aspects. They deal with Gati (conditions of existence), Indriyas (senses), Veda (Sex-activity), Kāya (embodiment), Yoga (vibratory activity), Kaşāya ( passions ), Jñāna (knowledge), Samyama (control), Darsana (conation), Leśyās (thought-colourations), Bhavyatā (capacity of attaining liberation from Karmic bondage), Samyakatva (Right-belief), samjñitva (Rationality) and Ahāra (assimilation).51 This is a classifica. tion of souls according to the different functions they perform in their different embodiments. However, there is a strong tendency towards a serial gradation from the less perfect to the more perfect. For example, the moving (trasa) worldly (saṁsāri) souls are classified on the basis of the number of senses they possess - one-sensed, two-sensed and so on. The one-sensed Java is the lowest in the grade of existence possessing only four Prānas (i.e. only the sense of touch and the three Balas) while the five-sensed soul (of human being) possess ten Prānas, and it is also rational.53 There is a tendency in Jaina works to classify souls according to the degrees of their development, as for example, into mu idane and liberated, 53 and mundane into rational and irrational 54 and mobile and immobile, 55 and mobile souls into two-sensed worm to five-sensed man 56 and immobile into five kinds of bodies---earth, water, fire, air and vegetable, 57 from non developable to developable. This perhaps is due to the belief 58 in the natural upward move. ment of the soul by virtue of which one can reach to the highest state of existence. Every soul is potentially equipped
50 Nemicandra, Gommațasara (Jiva Kända), 141. 51 Ibid., 142. 52 Kundakunda, Pañcastikāyasära, 114. Cp. Gomnatas ära (Jiva Kānda),
74-76. 53 Umāsvāmi, Tattvärthasutra, II. 10. 54 Ibid., II. 11.
56 Ibid., II. 23. 55 Ibid., II. 12.
57 Ibid., II. 13. 58 Nemicandra, Gomnaţsara (Jiva kända), 78.