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13
KARMA: THE BASIS OF JAINA PSYCHOLOGY
possesses an inherent nature of variegation. Karma is the ultimate determinant of the various courses of events, for it is not in fixture but of variegated nature. Even Time, Nature, Matter, etc., are not outside the province of karma. These different factors are only the expressions of the working of the universal law of karma. To what the change in Nature is assigned? To what the variation in Matter is attributed? To what the alteration in Time is ascribed? The only solution of these problems rests in the working of the supreme law of karma. No better solution of the diversity of the course of occurrences in the phenomenal world can be found out than the doctrine of karma.
II
JAINA ACCOUNT OF KARMA
The doctrine of karma gives some explanation of our specific characteristics, some satisfactory answer to the factor of our personality that we have at present. It tells us how these factors were generated as the resultant of the forces produced in the past. The Jaina holds that every individual soul possesses infinite apprehension, infinite comprehension, infinite bliss, and infinite power. All these characteristics belong by nature to every soul while it is in all perfection. The empirical souls are not perfect, therefore, they are not free to enjoy perfect apprehension, complete comprehension, unrestricted bliss, and unlimited power. Why is it so? What restricts their faculty of apprehension, comprehension, etc.? The Jaina philosopher answers that the innate faculty of the soul is infected by something foreign. The foreign element that covers the perfection and purity of the soul is nothing but karma. The Jaina meaning of karma is not "work or deed". According to the Jaina conception, karma is an aggregate of particles of very fine matter which is not perceptible to the senses. If the self be regarded to be pure and perfect by nature, why should it be subject to infection? If infection is possible, it must be infected for all time. The Jaina philosopher answers that this objection has no force. It is a matter of daily experience that though perfectly luminous and pure by nature, the light of the sun, etc., is very often obscured by a veil of dust, by fog, by a patch of cloud. The problem of the self is exactly like these.
