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15) The Doctrine of Karma in Jaina Philosophy
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(bhāva-karman). The physical aspect comprises the particles of Karma (karma-pudgala) accruing into the soul and polluting it. The psychic aspect is primarily the mental states and events arising out of the activity of mind, body and speech. They are like the mental traces of the actions, as we experience the mnemic traces long after the conscious states experienced vanish. The physical and the psychic Karma are mutually related to each other as cause and effect." The distinction between the physical and the psychic aspects of Karma is psychologically significant, as it presents the interaction of the bodily and the mental due to the incessant activity of the soul.
This bondage of the soul to karman is of four types, according to nature (praksti), duration (sthiti), intensity (anubhāga or rasa) and quantity (pradesa).*
Karma can be distinguished into eight types : 1) Jñanavaraniya, that which obscures right knowledge; 2) darsanāvaraniya, that which obscures right intuition; 3) vedaniya, arousing affective states like feelings and emotions; 4) mohaniya, that which deludes right faith; 5) ayus-karman, determining the age of the individual; 6) nāma karman, which produces various circumstances collectively making up an individual existence, like the body and other special qualities of individuality; 7) gotra-karman, which determines the family, social standing, etc., of the individual; and 8) antarāya-karman which obstructs the inborn energy of the soul and prevents the doing of good actions.
Each kind of Karma has its limits in time within which it must exhaust itself. The accumulated Karma brings a transcendental hue or hallo to the soul which is called lesya. There are six Leśyās. These Leśyās have predominantly a moral resultant.
22. Aştasahasri (N. S. Press, Bombay 1915): p. 51, anyonyakāryakāra
nabhävajñāpanārthat våt. 23. Karma grantha, 3, 2.
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