Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

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

Page 206

A Comparative Study 185 for. The Karma or the sum of the past life of a soul generates in it certain blind cravings and passion. These cravings in the soul attract to it particular sorts of matter particles and organize them into the body unconsciously desired.
But there are also some differences between the Jain and Samkhya conceptions of soul. According to the Jains the soul in its pure state is possessed of infinite perception (ananta-darśana), infinite knowledge (ananta-jñāna) and infinite power (ananta-vīrya). It is all perfect. The souls are infinite in number. They are substances and are eternal. According to the Samkhya, although the souls are many, they are without parts and qualities. They do not contract or expand in accordance with their occupation of smaller and larger bodies but are always all-pervasive, and are not contained in the bodies in which they are manifested. Unlike the Jain soul possessing infinite knowledge, power and perception, the Samkhya soul is described as being devoid of such characteristics. In Jainism the soul is veiled by Karma matter, and every act of knowledge means only the partial removal of the veil. But the Samkhya says that the soul is a distinct, transcendent principle, whose real nature as such is behind or beyond the subtle matter of knowledge. Knowledge revelation is not the unveiling or revelation of a particular part of the soul, as the Jains suppose.
The whole course of evolution from Prakṛti to the gross physical elements is distinguished in the Samkhya into two stages, the psychical and the physical, the former including the developments of Prakrti as Buddhi, Ahamkara and the eleven sense-motor organs, and the latter constituting the evolution of five subtle physical essences (Tanmātra), the gross elements (Mahābhūtas) and their products. The Tanmätras or physical essences are devoid of specific perceptible character and hence called aviseșa. The gross elements and their products are possessed of specific characters and so they are designated as Viseșa. The gross body which is composed of five gross elements is the support of the subtle body in so far as the intellect, the ego and the senses cannot function without some physical basis. This metaphysics rests mainly on its theory of causation which is known as Satkāryavāda. This theory has two different forms, namely, Pariṇāmavāda and Vivartavāda. The latter, which is accepted by the Advaita Vedäntins, holds that the change of the cause into the effect is merely apparent, but according to the former, which is especially held by the Samkhya, there is a real transformation (pariņāma) of the