Mahavira His Life and Teachings

Author(s): Bimla Charn Law
Publisher: Luzac and Co UK

Page 98

TEACHINGS
The study of the category of jiva is important because it is in connection or inter-connection with the six classes of beings that the process of karma sets in and the nature of man's conduct is determined. The Jina taught Know and understand that they all desire happiness; by hurting these beings men do harm to their own souls, and will again and again be born as one of them. Every being born high or low in the scale of the living creation, among movable and immovable beings, will meet with its death. Whatever sins the evil doer commits in every birth, for them he must die.'1
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The things without life are either formed or formless. The formed are compound things and atoms constituting the world of matter The world of the formless is represented by the first four of the astikāyas, viz. dharma, adharma, space, and time. Dharma and adharma explain motion and absence of motion respectively. Space explains how things and beings appear mutually distinct, and time explains their duration of existence. Thus the category of ajīva helps us in completing our study of the world of life and of existence.2
1 Sütrakṛtānga, I, 7 2, 3; Jaina-Sutras, II, p. 292. 2 Uttaradhyayana, XXXVI,