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CHAPTER II
Similarly the different classifications of jivas or jivasthāna and the classification of man according to spiritual development or gunasthana, are all ultimately traceable to the different manifestations of matter. The nature of the Pure Self must therefore be understood to be entirely different from the above-mentioned various physical modes.
If the material characteristics, physical and psycho physical, are thus summarily disposed of either as qualities and modes of matter or as psychical effects produced thereby, then how can it be justified that the jiva is described in the scripture in terms of the very same attributes which are dismissed as being alien to its nature. The answer to this apparent self-contradiction is given in the next gāthā.
वत्रहारेण दु एदे जीवस्स हवंति वण्णमादीया |
55
गुणठाणता भावा ण दु केई णिच्छयणयस्स ॥ ५६ ॥ vavahāreņa du ede jīvassa havamti vaṇṇamādīyā guṇaṭhāṇamtā bhāvā ņa du keī ņicchayanayassa (56) व्यवहारेण त्वेते नीवस्य भवन्ति वर्णाद्याः
गुणस्थानान्ता भावा न तु केचिन्निश्चयनयस्य ॥ ५६ ॥
56. These characteristics beginning from varņa (colour) and ending with gunasthana or stages of spiritual development are (predicated) of the soul from the vyavahāra point of view; but from the point of view of reality, not one of these can be predicated of the soul.
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Vyavahāra or the practical point of view is taken for emphasising the jiva-paryaya or modifications of the soul. Emphasis of paryaya or modification naturally implies diversion of attention from dravya, the real substance. These jiva-paryāyas or modifications of the soul are the results of immemorial association of the soul with matter. Just as cotton cloth puts on the colour of the dyeing substance, so also the jiva puts on the characteristics of the associated matter. Since the empirical Self is so coloured in ordinary life, it is described in those terms though in reality it is alien to those characteristics.
The next gatha explains why from the real point of view the characteristics of colour, etc., cannot be predicated of the jiva.
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