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Paramåtma-prakasa
besides Atman which is conceived as an impersonal pervasion identical with Brahman, the cosmic substratum. The Ātman in Jainism is not a miniature of any universal soul as in Upanişads, but it carries with it the seeds of Paramātman which status it will attain when freed from Karmamatter. In the Upanişads and Bhagavadgita Karman stands for good or bad act, while in Jainism it is a subtle type of matter which inflows into the soul and determines its career in the round-of-rebirths. In terms of modern philosophy the soul and God according to Jainism are identical in the sense that they are two stages of the same entity, and thus each and every soul is God; while the world, which is eternal without being created by anybody, is a scene of many souls working out their spiritual destinies. But in Vedānta the soul, the world and the God are all in one, the Brahman.
The Two Distinct Tendencies—Upanişads represent synthetically an 'absolute pantheism' by merging together the Ātman theory and Brahman theory. Really these are two independent tendencies, one pluralistic and the other monistic; and one can hardly develop out of the other. The former accepts an infinite number of souls wandering in Saṁsāra due to certain limitations, but when these limitations are removed and their real nature realized, there is rescue, there is liberation, there is individualistic immortality; every Ātman becomes a Super Ātman. Super-Ātmans are infinite, but they represent an uniform type possessing the same characteristics like infinite vision, infinite knowledge, infinite bliss and infinite power. This Super-Ātman enjoys ideal isolation, and he has nothing to do with creation, protection and the destruction of the world. On the other hand Brahman-theory starts with Brahman as a great presence out of which everything comes and into which everything is drawn back like threads in the spider's constitution. The individual souls are merely finite chips of the infinite block of the great Brahman. Sāṁkhya and Jainism pre-eminently stand for Atman-theory, while the Vedic religion stands for Brahman-theory : Upanişads bring these two together and achieve the unity of Ātman and Brahman, a triumph of monism in the history of Indian religious thought.
4. Paramatman or the Super-spirit as the Divinity-Paramātman is the eternal Deva, divinity, that dwells in liberation at the top of three worlds never to come back in Samsāra (1. 4, 25, 33, etc.). There are infinite Siddhas, i.e., the liberated souls, who have attained self-realization and are to be meditated upon with a steady mind (I. 2, 16, 39); there are then Arahantas, the same as Tirthankaras, who are on the point of attaining liberation with their four Karmas destroyed, whose words are to be accepted as authoritative, and who are to be worshipped (1- 62, II. 20, 168, 195-96. etc.); and lastly there are three classes of monks (muni) who practise great meditation and realize Paramātman in order to achieve the great bliss
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