Outlines of Jainism

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

Page 76

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OUTLINES OF JAINISM
By the experiences and sufferings of innumerable lives every error, every weakness has been detected, outlived, and purged; in the light of samyag-jñāna the substances shine forth transparent and mysteryless in their eternal attributes, and their power to fascinate is exposed as the child of infatuation and ignorance. Reincarnation, then, instead of being an evil or a terror, is the necessary principle of enabling the soul to go on rectifying its errors and realizing its powers and purposes in life. Karma stands to reincarnation as cause to effect.
The eight varieties of this cause have been given above. There are four points of view from which the bondage of soul by matter may be considered: from the nature of the bondage (prakriti)—of this there are eight kinds, as given above ; from its duration (sthiti); from the intensity with which the karmic matter binds the soul (anubhāga); and from the number of particles or quantity of matter attaching to the soul (pradeśa). Sthiti may be said to be karma considered with reference to time; anubhāgu, with reference to space; pradeśa, with reference to matter, and prakriti with reference to soul.
The eight kinds of karmas from the prakriti point of view are subdivided into 148 main classes called the “ 148 prakritis” of karmus. They are as follows:--
I. Jñānāvaranīya: jñāna, knowledge, is of five kinds (see pp. 59-60), and so also the knowledge-obscuring kurmas are of five kinds according as they obscure (1) mati, (2) śruti, (3) avadhi, (4) manahparyāya, or (5) kevala jñāna.