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Lord Mahavira
its faculty of consciousness has either used it for a definite purpose, or come in contact with it accidentally.
The two aims of Jain philosophy are to regulate, if not to check, this flowing in of karmic matter; and then by a process which it calls discrimination (viveka), prevent it getting settled round life.
It is this settling (bandha), or fixation of matter, which binds life, forcing it into karmic bodiés-that is, bodies formed from karmic matter as opposed to static matter-when life loses more and more its volition, being, at last, completely bound by matter. This binding may remain for ever: but, pure thought, which is the prelude to purification, has the power of loosening karmic particles, and finally shaking them off altogether when, the text says, the soul shines in all its original luminosity, grandeur and glory.
This thesis is very rational; for, the answer to the question as to how this metaphysical postulate has been formed, is, that the knowledge has been imparted by liberated souls.
In the process of life purifying itself from karmic matter, certain higher lives have been evolved; and they have been the teachers of the world in this respect amongst others.
These liberated souls are not creators, though they are worthy of worship; because, positing the thesis that one becomes the thing on which one meditates, these liberated souls are to be the 'summum bonum' of every man's existence: one may even meditate on them as one's own self.
All the virtues, which, even in man, we cognise as of divine origin, are in these liberated souls in their fullness; and, from time to time, they take on forms to return to the earth to help, to teach and save souls.
Matter, says Jain philosophy, is as real as the souls or life. It differs from the latter: and its difference is, that, whilst matter has no consciousness, the soul has consciousness.
The second postulate of matter is energy.
The principle of motion was posited in Mahâvîra's philosophy from its very inception: that matter contained in itself the power of motion, and, once moved, would continue to move until something stopped it, when it remained in its third division of rest.
