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JAINA PHILOSOPHY: AN INTRODUCTION
supernatural or Providential to an unscientific mind, is natural or causal and not supernatural or accidental to a scientific mind.
Meaning of Karma :
The Jaina thinkers do not regard this universe as the mere aggregate of the six substances set together by some supernatural authority. They hold that it is a system in itself, subject to some definite laws inherent in its own constitution. Certain phenomena occur regularly in certain circumstances and not otherwise. There is a universal law of causation operating in the universe. The phenomena of life and consciousness are not similar to the phenomena of matter or energy. In pure material activity, there is growth by addition in dead objects which is a product of chemical law only, whereas a conscious being takes to itself particles foreign to those that are already in the body and changes their nature and assimilates them with its own body. Moreover, living beings reproduce themselves in their species. These characteristics are not possessed by dead matter. Jainism regards souls to be real and infinite in number. Each soul possesses some individual characteristics different from others. The doctrine that gives us some explanation of our individual characteristics, i.e., some satisfactory answer to the factors of our individuality which we have at present and tells us how these factors were produced as the result of the forces generated in the past, is known as the doctrine of karma.
According to Jaina philosophy, every individual soul possesses infinite intuition, infinite knowledge, infinite power and infinite bliss. All these attributes belong by nature to every soul in its perfection. Mundane souls are not perfect, because their knowledge, energy etc. are found to be restricted. They are not perfectly free to enjoy complete knowledge and unrestricted bliss. Why is it so ? What restricts their innate faculty of knowing etc.? The answer is: They are infected by
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