Book Title: Jaina Culture
Author(s): Mohanlal Mehta
Publisher: P V Research Institute Varanasi

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Page 106
________________ CHAPTER VII TRANSMIGRATION The conception of transmigration has for its support the existence of the soul that goes from birth to death and death to birth. Our present life is just a link of the long transmigratory chain. The soul after dwelling in one body for a. certain length of time leaves it and enters into another body in accordance with its own accumulated karmas. It may assume a human form, an animal form, a vegetable form, a celestial form or an infernal form. All this is governed by the supreme law of karma. The souls are compelled by their karmic forces to assume different bodies in different. forms. They are bound to enjoy or suffer the natural conse-, quences of their good or evil karmas. Individaal Immortality : The soul that experiences various states of birth and death is not to be understood in the shape of a collection of habits, attitudes etc. It is in the form of an independent entity to which all these psychological functions belong. It is a spiritual and immaterial substance which is permanent and eternal in the midst of all changes and 'modifications. We are not in a position to have an experience of its purė. and perfect nature. The mundane soul is an aggregate of both the spiritual as well as the material qualities. Karmic: forces associated with the soul are responsible for the manifestation of material qualities. The liberated soul is purely. immaterial and spiritual. States of Existence : The force that draws the soul to a certain body where it develops its own physique for the working out of its accumu

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