Parmatma Prakash

Author(s): Yogindra Acharya
Publisher: Central Jaina Publishing House

Page 12

INTRODUCTION.
· the hypothesis of a solitary soul precludes the possibility of bringing
another on the sceue to be made a scapegoat of. • Nor can the being who feels the pain and longs to escape from the bondage of samsara be denied existence, since feelings are experienced by living beings, never by non-entities. It is thus clear that Advaitism is unable to meet the objections which arise from the one-sidedness of its philosophy, and cannot be relied upon to ini part the truth.
Jaiuism points out that tliere is an infinite number of souls each of which is endowed with the power to attain to the perfectiou of Gods. These souls are involved in the cycle of births and deaths in subjection to the force of karmas which consist, firstly, in thoughts, feelings and emotions of the soul, and, secondly, in the chains of a very subtle kind of . matter invisible to the eye and the ordinary instruments of scierce. All habits which we find difficult to break away from are bonds of karmic particles, and cripple our ratural activities in n:oie ways than one. The effect of karmas survives the plıysical death, and is preserved in and carried over from incarnation to incarnation, by a subtle body called the karmana sharira. This karmana sharira is merely the sum-total of the karmic forces, or chains, without which no liviug beiug outside the holy precincts of Nirvana can exist. The idea of this body can be readily grasped by the mind, if we take into consideration the effect of its absence on the soul. The essence of soul is what is called pure spirit, or consciousness, which in the absence of a restraining body of some kind, must be conceived to be in full possesion and enjoyment of its natural functions, z.C., omniscience, omnipotence, and perfect happiness. The idea of such a perfect individuality descending to iuliabit a body of flesh and thereby crippling itself, in a number of ways, is too absurd to be entertained for a moment. The existence of some force capable of drag. ging it into a body is, therefore, a condition precedent to its birth in our world. But force is not conceivable apart from matter of some kind or other in which it might be bound up, so that the power which drags a soul into a particular body has to be recoguised as a kind of chain forged from some sort of material. Now, if we can understand that all living beings are fivas ensouled in bodies of physical inatter, we must further admit that the karmic forces which drag them into different bodies