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Śramaṇa, Vol 57, No. 1/January-March 2006
for himself. It is the concept of self, which degrades an individual by creating egoism in his heart. One is so pre-occupied with one's self that one forgets the truth. The self is the root cause of bondage. It is just a name of a compound, which makes us anxious about our survival after death only because we wrongly consider the self as separate from the physical constituents.
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The death of the body is a less significant phenomenon for Jainism. In this context Jainism is closer to Hindu metaphysics of the Samkhya and Vedānta persuasions. The Jaina metaphysical scheme accepts a plurality of souls (jīva) and five categories of nonliving entities (ajīva) the eternal categories of ether (ākāśa), the means of movement (dharma) and the means of rest (adharma), time (kāla) and matter (pudgala). Only Pudgala and Jīva are active, infinite and constant in number. Mahāvīra held that not only the animals and plants but also such entities as stones, rocks, running water and many other natural objects have souls.
In itself the soul is omniscient, blissful and naturally bright. The number of souls in the universe is infinite. The souls are fundamentally equal but they differ owing to the adherence of matter in the fine atomic form. Karma is a kind of subtle matter, which is invisible to the human eye. As we know, this is a unique doctrine of Jainism because the other systems consider karma as immaterial. This karma is responsible for the bondage of the souls. The latter's association with and dissociation from the karmic matter causes the birth and death in a cycle of transmigration. The influx (asarva) and bondage (bandha) of karma into the soul causes the material embodiment and death of the souls. Professor A.L. Basham presents this doctrine in the following words:
"The naturally bright soul becomes dulled and clouded over by karmic matter and thus acquires first a spiritual and then a material body. The obfuscation of the soul is compared to the gradual clouding
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