________________
218
JAINISM: A THEISTIC PHILOSOPHY "GOD IN JAINISM"
deny the existence of any permanent soul. The Jainas also believed that changes were produced by assemblage of conditions and held that, since no ultimate and absolute view of things could logically be taken, the reality of the permanence of the world, at least some of the fundamentals must be acknowledged side by side with the question of change. According to Jainas, those who hold that there is nothing really permanent in the universe and everything changes from moments to moment are one sided because change and permanence are both real. Reality consists of three factors: permanence, origin and decay-utpāda-vyaya-dhrauvyayuktam sat. Jainas hold that, if everything is taken to be momentary, it will be impossible to explain memory, recognition, the immediate feeling of personal identity, etc. And hence the concept of liberation will not be able to stand in the absence of any permanent soul to be liberated.
Momentariness cannot explain the constitution of any individual series, because without something permanent behind the changing modes (paryayas), the changing states cannot be held together to form continuity in the individual. The doctrine of momentariness cannot also be proved by perception or inference.
To the Buddhist, there is no problem of relation between the soul and consciousness. They do not believe in the existence of any substance like soul. Cognition to them is a function of the beginning less stream of consciousness (citta), which takes the form of Ālayavijñāna and Pravṛtti-vijñāna. These are no permanent substratum or central matrix of the process. But in the state of Mukti or salvation, when consciousness is devoid of the influx of avidya or tṛṣṇā it does not cognize any external object.31
Gautama was a non-believer in permanent soul and to all questions about a future life after the attainment of Nirvāņa; his reply was: "I do not know. It is not given me to know." They
3Dr. Ramjee Singh," Jaina Perspective in Philosophy and Religion”, „P-78
Jain Education International
For Personal & Private Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
