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MAHĀVĪRA: HIS LIFE AND TEACHINGS
liberation, and liberation means the freedom of soul from its bondage. The doctrine of nine terms is formulated with a view to explaining systematically these two points. Of the nine terms, some are to explain how the bondage of soul arises by way of effects of karma upon it, and some to explain how those effects are got rid of and the liberation of soul is obtained.
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The first pair of terms consists of jīva and ajiva. These two terms comprehend the world of existence as known and experienced. The jiva signifies all that has life, and the ajīva signifies the things without life The world of life is represented by the six classes of living things and beings, the first three of which are immovable and the last three movable. The earth lives, water lives, and plants are immovable beings, while the movable beings are the fire lives, wind lives, and those with an organic body The living things are either subtile or gross, and the living beings are either those still belonging to samsara or those whose souls are perfected Through the gradation of living things and beings one can trace the evolution of the senses, the lowest form of beings being provided with only one sense, the sense of touch.1
1 Uttaradhyayana, XXXVI; Sūtrakṛtānga, I, 7. I.
