Jaina Culture

Author(s): Mohanlal Mehta
Publisher: P V Research Institute Varanasi

Page 80

CHAPTER VI KARMA AND LIBERATION
The doctrine of karma gives some explanation of our specific characteristics, some satisfactory answer to the factors of our personality that we have at present. It tells us how these factors were generated as the result of the forces produced in the past. The Jaina holds that every individual soul possesses infinite apprehension, infinite comprehension, infinite bliss and infinite power. All these characteristics belong by nature to every soul while it is in all perfection. The mundane soul is not perfect, therefore, it is not free to enjoy perfect apprehension, complete comprehension, unrestricted bliss and unlimited power. Why is it so ? What restricts its faculty of apprehension, comprehension etc. ? The Jaina philosopher answers that the innate faculty of the soul is infected by something foreign. The foreign element that covers the perfection and purity of the soul is nothing but karma. Meaning of Karma : .
The Jaina meaning of karma is not work or deed. According to the Jaina conception, karma is an aggregate of particles of very fine matter not perceptible to the senses. If the self be regarded to be pure and perfect by nature, why should it be subject to infection ? If infection is possible, it must be infected for all time. The Jaina philosopher answers that this objection has no force. It is a matter of our experience that though perfectly luminous and pure by nature, the light of the sun etc. is very often obscured by a veil of dust, by fog, by a patch of cloud. The problem of the self is exactly like this. It is also obscured by comprehension-obscuring karma and the like. As regards the