Jainism from the View Point of Vedantic Acaryas

Author(s): Yajneshwar S Shastri
Publisher: B J Institute

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Jainism from the view point of Vedāntic Ācāryas
come across with certain Jainas who believed in the grace of Siddhas and Arhats. Criticism of Debaparimāņavāda :
Nimbārka and his followers reject the Jaina doctrine of dehaparimāņavāda. The most important and noteworthy feature of Jaina doctrine of soul is that the size of the soul changes, according to the size of the body which it occupies. If the body that it occupies is big, the soul becomes even big as an elephant, and if the same enters the body of an ant, it compresses itself and assumes the smallest size of the ant. Thus, sizes of the souls are variable and they depend upon the sizes of the bodies which they occupy. The same soul, thus, becomes small or great as the case may be. The soul is of the size of the body. The soul substance is regarded as so much subtle that it is infinitely compressible and infinitely expansible, so that it can fill any body that it happens to occupy as a result of its deeds. It is neither atomic (aņu) nor all-pervasive (Vibhu). The soul (Jiva) is called Jivāstikāya, which means that occupies space. It occupies innumerable space-points. It has a capacity to expand and contract itself according to the dimension of the body which it occupies at any time. It occupies the whole of the body in which it lives, so that from the tip of the hair to the nail of the feet, whenever there may be cause of sensations, it can at once feel it. The manner in which the soul occupies the body is often explained as being similar to the manner in which a lamp illumines the whole room (Tattvārthasūtra, V. 16-MariErfahrfezi 14aal)