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A SOURCE-BOOK IN JAINA PHILOSOPHY
that has been asked. The answer to this question lies in the phenomenal nature of the jiva in the samsara. The empirical soul is involved in the wheel of tramsmigration from the beginningless time. It is bound by the karma from the beginningless time and has been affected thereby. The jiva that has been in bondage due to karma is considered to be having form. In this sense, the amūrta jīva being involved in the wheel of life due to karma is murta and therefore the jīva has both the affects the rūpī and the arūpī aspects. The liberated jīva is arūpī, i. e., having no form, while empirical soul has form.
The souls which are free from the karmic matter are not in bondage. The souls that are bound by the karma get themselves further bound by the karma. The relation between the karma and the jiva has neither beginning and is neither prior nor the posterior. Just as the material objects like the jaggery and the flowers when mixed and collected give rise to the intoxicating quality, so also, the material aspects of karma is encrusted with the immaterial self.
H.3
WHO BINDS THE KARMA?
The karmic bondage is possible only to those who are in bondage. Jivas who are in bondage get the encrustation of karma more and more.1 Due to the rise of mɔhaniya karma, passions like rāgadveşa (attachment and hatred) are produced. They give to the influx of asubha karma (inauspicious karma). The jīvas which are free from attachment (moha) are called vītarāgī and in their activity there is subhakarma. The new bondige of the soul by the karma is not dependent of the earlier bondage. And the souls which are free from bondage have no karmic bond, We can say that the soul that is bound gets itself involved in bondage. But the soul that is free has no bondage.
Gautama asked Mahāvira: Bhagavan! Is the jiva that is in misery, affected by misery? or the jiva that is not in misery affected by misery?
1 Prajñāpanā 23, 1, 292 2 Bhagavati 9 3 Bhagavati
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