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( 112 ) The Jaina doctrine of knowledge is assuredly a valuable contribution to the epistemological thought. Knowledge is inherent in soul and depends for its expression upon the disentanglement of the soul from the forces that vitiate its intrinsic capacities. · The Kaşājas of attachment and aversion are held responsible for the. obstruction of the capacity to know, and it is by the total destruction of these Kaşājas that the soul achieves 'the blaze of omniscience', Absolute annihilation of knowledge is impossible, and the knowledge is at its minimum in the one-sensed organism. Perfection is achieved not by adding one knowledge to another, but by removing the cause of imperfection, which consists in the Kaçãyas. Ignorance is only an incidental effect of a more fundamental cause, namely, the Karma · that blurs the right intuition.
The Karma-doctrine is another glorious achievement of the Jaina thinkers. Karma is a substantive force, a sort of infra-atomic particles which have the peculiar property of developing the effects of merit and demerit. “As heat can unite with iron and water with milk, so Karma unites with the soul.” Life is a struggle between spirit and matter. The material body is to be subdued by the spiritual sélf. 'Samsāra' consists in spirit subdued by matter. Evolution means evolution of the spirit followed, as a matter of necessity, by the evolution of the body. The body is the instrument of expression, and so the perfection of the spirit is synchronized with the perfection of the body. What controls the universe is the law of Karma. The world is made, not by gods and angels, but by the Karma of the spirits. The history of man is determined by his own voluntary choice. Man enters the world of his own creation and fashions it according to his own designs. He can transcend the inherited limitations by his will and action, and become the architect of his own future. The theory of fourteen states in the ascent to the state of Final Liberation is the logical consummation of the doctrine of Karma.
