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Karma Philosophy
At the very time when the soul receives karmic material particles four aspects are generated in them, viz., their nature, their duration, their flavour and their quantity. The generation of any one of the different natures in the karmic particles is called the bondage in respect of nature. These natures are: knowledge-obscuring nature, vision (darsana)-obscuring nature, pleasant-painful-feeling-producing nature, etc. With the generation of nature is generated or is rather fixed the duration of time for which the karmic particles remain stuck to the soul. This fixation of duration of time is called the bondage in respect of duration. The capacity to give good or bad fruits of different degrees of intensity is also generated at that very time in those karmic particles; this is called the bondage in respect of flavour. The quantity of karmic particles is also fixed at that very time. This fixation is called the bondage in respect of the quantity. As soon as the karmic particles are received by the, soul, they get transformed into different natures, form different groups according to their natures and their quantity in different groups too is different.
To explain these four types of bondage, an illustration of a sweet ball (modaka) is given. A sweet ball prepared from gas-destroying ingredients causes subsidence of gas; the one prepared from bile-destroying ingredients causes subsidence of bile; and the one prepared from phlegm-destroying ingredients causes subsidence of phlegm. Again, one sweet ball does not become rancid for four days, another for eight days, and a third one for a fortnight. Moreover, one sweet ball is more sweet and another less sweet, one more bitter and another less bitter. Further, one sweet ball contains two hundred grams of ingredients, another five hundred grams of ingredients; that is, different sweet balls contain different quantities of ingredients. Similarly, some karmic particles by their nature obscure the faculty of knowledge, some obscure the faculty of vision, some cause the experience of pleasure or pain, and so on. Again, different groups of karmic particles remain stuck to the soul for different durations of time and they have different capacities to give auspicious (sweet) or inauspi
in those births will again bind new karmas which are the causes of births in different life-species, and these newly bound karmas will in turn cause the soul wander in different births and these births will again cause bondage of still new karmas causing births in different life-species, and this will go on ad infinitum. Thus liberation will become impossible. (See Viseṣāvasyakabhāṣya-vṛtti gathās 2052-2053).
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