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18
THE PRACTICAL DHARMA
happiness, as sensations of pleasure and pain through the senses. On the other hand, motion which is not a characteristic of spirit, but of matter is possessed by the embodied soul. Another effect of the unhappy union between spirit and matter is the liability to death from which pure spirit is perfectly immune, but which, together with its companion, birth, is a constant source of dread to an unevolved, that is to say, an unemancipated soul. The fusion of spirit and matter also exposes the soul to danger from another quarter from which it enjoys complete immunity as pure spirit. This additional source of trouble consists in the inflow of fresh matter in consequence of the operation of the forces of magnetism, chemical affinity and the like, residing in the material already in union with the soul. As gaseous matter is not liable to combine with the element of earth in its natural purity, but becomes defiled by it when existing in the condition of water, so, owing to the influence of the material already in combination with it, does the soul become liable to be forced into union with certain types of matter which cannot assail it directly.
We thus observe that the union of spirit and matter is simply fraught with evil for the soul, whose condition scarcely differs from that of a man thrown into prison and thereby deprived of his freedom of action. The kārmāna śarīra is a sort of self-adjusting prison for the soul and constantly accompanies it, through all its incarnations, or births. Subject to modification, it is, again and again, at the end of each form of life, attracted into a new womb, organising, mechanically, the outer encasement of gross matter by the energies inherent within its own form.
Thus the conditioning of the physical body, and of the circumstances depending on that body-descent, family, status, wealth and the like is the result of the mechanical operation of the force of karma stored up in the kārmūņa šarīra.
The karmic force is dealt with by the Jaina Siddhanta under the following eight heads :
(1) jñānāvaranīya, or the knowledge-obstructing group;
(2) darśanīvaraṇīya, or the class of forces which interfere with perception;
