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Para-psychology and Jainism
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the Master Law going on uncessantly and ceaselessly. Karma is rebirth latent and rebirth is Karma manifest like indivisible unity of cause and effect. There are broadly speaking two schools of those who believe in the Law of Karma. The Negativists despise all forms of Karma good or bad since they cause bondage. To the Positivists like the Mīmāṁsakas and others, we should practise good Karmas to get good results.
The Karma phenomenology of the Jainas rests on the assumptions that every act must have its consequences which if not fully worked out in our life time, demand a future life for their fruition. This leads us to the idea of metempsychosis. The apparent diversities and inequalities among men demand an explanation which can be satisfied by the Law of Karma. But the Jaina meaning of Karma is different from the ordinary meaning. Karma here does not mean 'work and deed' but an "agregate of particles of very fine matter which are not perceptible by the senses.” This is the Doctrine of the Material Nature of Karman which is singular to Jainism. With other, Karman is formless. The Jainas regard Karma as the crystalised effect of the past activities of energies. But they argue that “in order to act and react and thereby to produce changes in things on which they work, the energies must have to be metamorphosed into forms or centres of forces."1 Like begets like. The cause is like the effect. “The effect ( i. e., Body ) is physical, hence the cause (i. e. Karma ) has indeed a physical form.” But unless Karma is associated with the soul, it cannot produce any effect because Karma is only the instrumental cause and it is the soul which is the essential cause of all experiences. Hence the Jainas believe in the Doctrine of soul as the possessor of Material Karma. But why and how the conscious soul should be associated with the unconscious matter? It is owing to the Karma, which is a substantive force or matter in a subtle form.
1. Nahar, P. C. & Ghosh, K, C. : Ibid. 2. Mehta, M. L. : Ibid.
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