Outlines of Jainism

Author(s): J L Jaini, F W Thomas
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Page 57

METAPHYSICS: II. KINDS, ETC., OF SOUL
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impertinent to the good mistress who brought her up and allowed her to dress well and develop her charms.
III. SUBSTANCE AND ATTRIBUTES Let us see what we mean by dravya, which is the generic name for soul, matter, time, and space, and the principles of motion and stationariness. A dravya exists in its own nature, and has its own attributes and modifications (7). It has what is technically called sattū. This suttă connotes three accidents: utpada, coming into existence, or origination ; vyayu, going out of existence, or perishing; and dhraurya, continuous sameness of existence, or continuance. The utpada and vyaya relate to modifications (paryāya) of substances ; dhraurya relates to its inner nature, to its essential attributes. Soul-dravya exists, or has sattā, which means that the soul exists with its soul-ness, and with its qualities and modifications. These qualities may refer to its essential nature, e.g. that the soul has consciousness; or to its transitory condition, to its paryāya, e.g. that the soul of Mahā vīra is the most white of all (see leśyās below, pp. 45-7). The soul's sattī, in the utpūda and vyaya aspects, relates to its embodied condition in samsāru. It comes into existence and goes out of it, as A or B. But as soul itself, it has continuous existence throughout time: it is the same soul now as when it animated the body called A or B. Before our birth, in our life and after death, until our highest evolution, the soul remains the same individual. This is the dhrauvya aspect of the soul's sattā.
The important matter is this : birth or death (utpūda