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ing (vivịttimān), that which is proved by its own self, consciousness (sva-samvedana-saṁsiddha) ; one different in nature from the earth and the other elements."? The three aspects of consciousness, viz., the cognitive, affective and conative which are implied in the description of soul made just now, are made explicit in another Jaina classic which makes a distinction between consciousness as knowing, as feeling and as experiencing the fruits of karma and willing. 3 A phenomenological description of the soul is also found. “The soul is the Lord ( prabhu), the doer (kartā), enjoyer (bhoktā) and limited to his body (dehamātra), still incorporeal, and as ordinarily found with karma. As a potter considers himself a maker and enjoyer of the clay-pot, so from the practical point of view, the mundane soul is said to be the doer of things like constructing house and the enjoyer of sense objects."4 It is interesting in this context to find William James distinguishing between the self as known or the me, the empirical ego as it is sometimes called and the self as knower or the I, pure ego. He considers the empirical self to consist of the "entire collection of consciousness, the psychic faculties and dispositions taken concretely. But the pure self is con. sidered to be very different from the empirical self. “It is the thinker, that which thinks. This is permanent, what the philosophers call the soul or the transcendental ego.”5
The Jaina philosophers anticipated an objection to pointing out to consciousness, as the distinct phenomenon in the living being, viz., that such a portrayal of the living entity does no justice to so many other characteristics like existence, origination, decay and permanence. In answering the objection they have pointed to the distinction between a definition and a description. The former pin-points the factor of distinction found in the thing defined whereas the latter considers the entity as a whole and analyses its constituents to their minutest detail. ..
The differentiating characteristic of a living being, according to the Tattvārtha-Sūtra is its being a substratum of the faculty of cognition (upayoga)? which is only a manifestation of consciousness in
2 Nyāyāvatāra, 31 3 Pañcâstikāyasāra, 38 4 Ibid., 27, Samayasāra, 124 5 Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 292 6 See Tattvārtha-Sūtra, V. 29 7 Ibid., II. 8
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