________________
104
JAINISM. AND WORLD PROBLEMS
mind in addition. The material influx also occurs when an act of himsa is merely conceived in intention, the sensory nerves with their specific properties furnishing the necessary material stimulus, in the absence of the external object, from within. I have no time to go deeper into the subject, but in a general way may say that the association of spirit with the material thus absorbed is the cause of embodied existence, and the soul continues to wander about in transmigration just so long as it remains involved in material impurities. As soon as it effects the riddance of matter from its constitution it becoines deified, and goes to reside among GODS.
In Jainism there is no idea of extinction of being on the termination of the individual's karınas. The soul is a simple, that is to say, a partless substance, according to the Teaching of the Omniscient Tirthamkaras, and being partless can. not be broken up into parts or vanish into nothing. Perhaps it will help to minimise the difference between Jaina Teaching and the Buddhist doctrine if I add that in Buddhism change is the key-note of nature while in Jainism being and becoming are given equal acceptance. The Jaina conception, too, recognises becoming and a perpetual flux of activity and movement; but it insists on the need for positing being also; for without being what can be the basis of becoming ? Change there is, but there is also something that is changing, something that is active, something that is becoming. There is no such thing as absolute inertness to be found in nature ; but at the same time there is no such thing as pure movement without anything that is moving, pure change, without anything that is changing, pure flux without anything that is flowing. The Jaina conception of substance is that of an ultimate unit of energy or activity, active yet indestructible, because not capable of being split up into parts. The flux of becoming is constituted by the movements of these self-existent particles or units of activity and will have no meaning for a rational mind without them. I am
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
