Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

Author(s): Narendra Nath Bhattacharya
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

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120 Jain Philosophy in Historical Outline
meant to reveal the different real aspects of the object, not dependent upon the mood of the judging mind but upon the relational characters of the many sided reality itself.
Scientific Enquiries: Cosmology
According to the Jains the universe has neither any beginning nor any end. The entire cosmos is composed of substances of different kind. These substances are possessed of some unchanging essential characters (guņas) and changing modes (paryāyas). These are broadly classified into two groups--extended (astikāya) and non-extended (anastikāya). Astikāya (Atthikāya) literally means "mass of all that is”. Every substance of this kind exists (asti) like a body (kāya) possessing extension. There is only one substance, namely, time (kāla) which is devoid of extension, and hence falls into the Anastikāya group.
Astikāya substances are again divided into two kindsa-living (Jīva) and non-living (Ajīva). Jiva is of two kinds, emancipated (Mukta) and fettered (Baddha). The latter is also of two kinds, moving (Trasa) and non-moving (sthāvara), e.g. those living in the bodies of earth, etc. The moving Jīvas are again classified into five-sensed, e.g. men, foursensed, e.g. bees, three sensed, e.g. ants, two-sensed, e.g. worms, and one-sensed, e.g. plants. In the same way Ajīva is divided into four categories Akāśā (space), Dharma (conditions of movement), Adharma (conditions of rest) and pudgala (matter). Pudgala is of two kinds—the atoms (Aņu) of earth water, fire, air, etc. and the compounds (Samg. háta).3
Although there is a tendency among the scholars to explain Jiva in term of Ātman or Puruşa of the other schools of Indian thought, etymologically it stands for 'what lives or is animate. The concept bears a clear mark of formulation from observing the characteristics of life and not through the search after a metaphysical principle underlying individual existence. Thus the word in the original sens stood for the vital principle rather than for the soul. Later on, however, the question of consciousness was emphasised, and the Jivas were theoretically arranged in a continuous series according to the
1DS, 24; Uttara, XXVIII, XXXVI, SBE, XLV, pp. 152-57, 206ff.
SDS, III, p. 33; POSMS, 129-132. 'Schübring, DJ, pp. 126ff. * Jacobi in SBE, XXII, 3n. $cf. TTDS, II. 8; Gunaratna on SDSC, 47.