Mahavira and his Teaching

Author(s): C C Shah, Rishabhdas Ranka, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: Bhagwan Mahavir 2500th Nirvan Mahotsava Samiti

Page 103

96
PADMANABH S. JAINI
'soulness' is not dependent on the fluctuations of the karmas, whether a soul is bound or free, it will never cease to have the quality of ‘soulness', i.e., consciousness. Umāsvāti includes bhavyatva and abhavyatva also under the same category, which confers on these two mutually exclusive dispositions as innate and inalienable a character as is accorded to jīvatva. A soul thus must not only be a jīva at all times, but must also be a bhavya or an abhavya. A bhavya, by definition, means one who is capable (at some indefinite time) of either suppressing or destroying the mohani ya-karma to such an extent that he gains the corresponding 'self-realization' (samyaktva=bheda-vijñāna) which eventually must culminate in liberation (mokṣa). An abhavya on the other hand is one who totally lacks such ability and is never able to overcome his 'wrong-faith' (mithyātva), and thus remains forever chained to the wheel of transmigration. Capacity for liberation (bhavyatva), therefore, is not something to be acquired by any means whatsoever by any soul; rather it is something that is either built into a soul as inalienably as consciousness, or is absent from a soul as eternally as is consciousness (caitanya) from matter (pudgala).
This incomprehensible theory of so radical a distinction between souls is rendered even more inscrutable when we realize that the system does not provide any clear signs by which a soul might be identified as a bhavya or an abhavya. The terms are not restricted to the 'faithful (i.e. a Jain by birth) and the 'non-faithful' (1.e. a non-Jain), nor to a 'meritorious' (pun yavān) and a 'sinful (papin) person. According to ācārya Kundakunda (and his commentator ācārya Amrtacandra) an abhavya may learn by heart all the twelve Angas (the Scriptures of the Jains), keep (outwardly of course) the precepts and the five great vows (maha-vratas) of a recluse (muni), and perform all the penances and austerities prescribed by the Jina, and yet not be able to overcome his mithyātva. In the course of his transmigration an abhavya may by dint of his mighty virtues be born in the highest of the heavens, even in the Graiveyakas, yet never attain the
1.
Ibid II.7