Jaina World of Non Living

Author(s): N L Jain
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith

Page 88

knowledge and conation (and all other attributes associated with them) representing the conscious character of the soul as detailed in 2.8.
5.
(a)
(b)
The existence of soul is negated on two counts: There is no cause of the origination of soul.
It is non-perceptible by senses.
Both these counts have been shown to be infested with fallacies of contrariety, non-existence and inconclusion. Muni Mahendra has summarised fourteen logistic points in support of the existence of soul from Jaina texts of different periods. The most important of them are mentioned here:
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
The Jaina world of Non-living
6.
The feeling of I-ness like 'I am happy, sorry etc.' is the first point to denote existence of conscious soul.
There does not exist any means of knowledge supporting negation of soul.
There is absolute non-existence of transformability of the living into non-living or vice-versa. There is also the existence of nonliving as counterpart of living.
Any existent can never be negated.
The sense-imperceptibility can not negate the soul as it would incur the non-existence of entities which are fine and distant in time and space. Moreover, the knowledge about non-material entity can not be acquired through senses. However, the omniscients, clairvoyants and telepaths may perceive its existence.
The qualities of consciousness, sensation of pleasures and pains, general and rebirthal memory, passions and volitions are the substrates or states which prove the existence of a substratum of a different nature as these are not found in non-living entities. That could be a living substratum only.
The collective knowledge and experience of non-living senseobject can not be there without the inner entity in the embodied living.
The properties of worldly and salvated living beings are described later alongwith other realities in terms of their similarities and
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