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THE NATURE OF SOUL IN JAINISM : A PARAPSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW-POINT
N. M. Kansara
I
Philosophical concept
Umāsväti (c. A. D. 350), the systemizer of Nirgrantha doctrines, has classified 'soul' into two types: 'transmigratory' and 'liberated". The Svetämbara scholiast Vädi Devasuri of the 12th cent. A. D. has discussed the nature of soul jiva and concluded that, on the basis of the pramānas like Pratyaksa and others, the soul is essentially. conscious, subject to modifications, an agent, and an enjoyer, endowed with the dimensions equal to that of the body in which it resides, and to whom the atoms of karma have stuck. Pt. Sukhlal Sanghvi has analyzed the Jaina viewpoint about the soul and has noted' the following aspects: (1) soul exists and is essentially endowed with consciousness, is independent and hence beyond origin and destruction; (2) souls are innumerable, endless, and different in different bodies*; (3) soul is endowed with numerous capabilities, the chief of which are the power to know, to act, to endeavour, and to desire and to put faith in; these powers are innate to, and inseparable from, the nature of the souls (4) The soul acquires impressions consequent to thoughts and activities, and these impressions take the form of an atomic astral body, which remains attached to it, during the course of transmigration from one body to another after the death of one physical body. (5) And although the soul is independently conscious and formless, it behaves as though endowed with a form, due to the contact with the accumulated karmas and their impressions'. (6) Moreover, the size of the soul is subject to increasing or decreasing in accordance with the body it occupies; but it does not affect its essential substance since only the size changes according to the circumstances; (7) the natural potentiality in all the souls is the same, but its development depends on its endeavour and strength or otherwise of the circumstances; and (8) there is no spot in the world where there do not exist souls with physical or astral bodies.
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The philosophical concept of soul as formulated by Jainism seems primary, rational, and applicable to people in general. Pt. Sanghvi has noted one particular point that the concept of soul was prevalent and fairly fixed in the eighth or more plausibly seventh century B. C. (in historical reality 6th-5th cent. B. C.) when the 23rd Tirthamkara Pārsvanatha lived and proceeded with his sadhana leading to nirvana. So far as the Jaina tradition is concerned, to date no essential change has been introduced in this belief about the nature of soul.
Consequent to a detailed comparative discussion of the viewpoints of the Jainas, the Samkhya-Yoga and the Nyaya-Vaiśesika, Pt. Sanghvi has concluded to that the Samkhya
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