Religion and Culture of the Jains

Author(s): Jyoti Prasad Jain
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

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RELIGION & CULTURE OF THE JAINS
The karmic matter may be said to pay almost the same role as the mayā or avidya of the Vedantists in explaining the phenomena of samsara. But, whereas māyā or avidyā (illusion or ignorance) is an abstract postulate, the karman is a subtle matter which flows into the soul when the latter has become receptive for it under the influence of attachment (rāga) or aversion (dveṣa), the two modes of spiritual delusion (moha). The samsarin (unliberated, mundane and embodied) soul has continued to be held in the bondage of karman since beginningless time, and being associated with this karmic matter it has never been without a concrete embodiment.
The association with karmic matter causes emotional and passional developments in the soul, which, in thier turn, result in attracting further karmic molecules and the consequent karmic bondage of the soul. In its embodied state, the soul comes to possess many material adjuncts, which, together with the various grades and conditions of existence to which such a soul is subjected, are due to the karmans that hold it in bondage.
The soul is not, however, the direct agent of these material karmans, but only of its own psychic conditions and state of consciousness which find expression in the vibrations (yogas) caused by its own mental, vocal and bodily activities. These vibrations of the mundane soul, being already tinged with emotions and passions, cause the karmic influx. Thus the soul, when in conjunction with matter, develops a sort of susceptibility which finds expression in the shoul's passional states; the latter, in their turn, cause the soul to establish a relationship with matter and let itself be held in bondage. The actual springs of our action are, therefore, the psychic activities, feelings, emotions, passions, etc. of the soul itself, which are called the bhava-karmans, as distinct from the dravya-karmans which are material or matter forms. The former leads to the latter, and the latter to the former, and the process goes on ad infinitum,