Nyayavatara

Author(s): Satyaranjan Banerjee
Publisher: Sanskrit Book Depot P Ltd

Page 10

of self or soul. Bandha implies the mixture of the Karmic matter with the nature of the soul on account of which the soul loses its intrinsic purity and brilliance. Samvara represents the act of presenting the inflow of the Karmic matter and hence it is the blocking of Asrava. Nirjara represents the act of destroying the Karmic matter which may adhere to the soul. Each particular karma has been caused by some action, good, bad or indifferent, of the individual being in question, so that karma in return, produces certain painful, or pleasant, or indifferent conditions and events which the individual in question must undergo. If the condition is good, it is called punya, if it is opposite, it is pāpa.
The conception of Jiva may be said to be the central doctrine of Jaina philosophy, all the other categories being merely secondary and subsidiary to the central entity. The saṁsāra jīva is again divided into four classes : deva, manușya, tiryak and naraka. The devas live in the upper world (Devaloka), while the nārakas live in hell. Manuşya (men) live in this world along with the tiryak animals belonging to the zoological and botanical kingdoms. All beings of these four different groups are called sarsāra Jivas, because they are subject to the cycle of birth and death. This saṁsāri jīva associated with its own karmic bondage and its own corporeal existence is considered to be uncreated and therefore beginningless. For the Jaina metaphysican the question when the soul did get associated with material body is a meaningless question, because they say saṁsāra is anādi (beginningless). At the time of liberation of the soul from material and karmic bondage, it is said to attain Mokşa, i.e. the cycle of births and deaths is stopped for him.
The five categories which are grouped in the ajīva class are distinctly non-spiritual and hence incapable of consciousness. They are therefore acetana. These are-dharma, adharma, ākāśa, pudgala and kāla. The inherent character of dharma is to make move, or to be moved, while adharma is the opposite to it. The idea is that dharma and adharma are necessary conditions for the subsistence of all other things, viz. souls and matter. Akasa is space, while pudgala is matter which is eternal and consists of atoms. There are two kinds of matter : gross (sthüla) and subtle (sūksma). Gross matter are the things which we perceive, while subtle matter is beyond the reach of our senses. Subtle matter is that matter which is transformed into the different kinds of karma. Kāla (time) is a quasisubstance, and its necessity to accept it as a substance is to explain