Structural Evolution and the Doctrine of Karma

Author(s): Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: Z_Vijay_Vallabh_suri_Smarak_Granth_012060.pdf

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ĀCĀRYA VIJAYAVALLABHASŪRI COMMEMORATION VOLUME
Prānāpāna-paryapti develops the organs of respiration; the vocal organs are accounted for by the Bhāṣā-paryāpti ; the organs of the mind are developed by the operation of the Manaḥ-paryāpti. The Sthira-Karma makes steady the functions of blood-circulation etc. while the Asthira makes it unsteady. According to the Jainas, all physiological phenomena connected with the evolution of the body are thus determined by what they call the Nāma-Karma. The Nāma-Karmas are primarily divided into 42 kinds, which with their sub-classes are 93 in number. The Karma which is thus at the root of organic evolution is held by the Jainas to be Paudgalika or material in nature,--so that there are apparent grounds for holding that according to the Jainas, it is Matter and the Material forces that bring about the Body and its parts with all their peculiarities. In fact, the Jainas use the expression Adịşta in the sense of the determining cause of animal origination and call it Paudgalika in opposition to the Nyāya view of it as a power, pertaining to the Soul.
With all this, however, one may justly doubt if the above charge of Vacaspati and others against the Jaina theory of organic evolution is well founded. The Jainas, of course, emphatically deny that they leave the course of structural evolution to the operation of Matter alone. The embodiment of the Soul in a Body, according to them, is due to what they call Yoga which is a sort of peculiar vibration, as it were, set up in the Soul, in connection with the corresponding vibrations in the Body, the Mind and the Organ of Speech. It is further said that in order that the said embodiment may be possible, it is not only necessary that the requisite organic matter should be near at hand to the psychical principle but that the latter should also be rid of the Viryāntarāya-Karmas i.e. forces which obstruct its power of shrouding itself in a proper Body and similar powers regarding its limbs and sub-limbs. The Yoga which causes Asrava i.e. actual influx of proper organic matter into the Soul and the consequent Bandha (literally, the bondage of the Soul in the material Body, but physiologically—the actual formation and development of the Body) thus requires the suitableness in the formative Matter and a responsive activity in the psychical principle to take it in. The Asrava, however, is the way which introduces the organic matter, just as a channel, as the Jainas describe it, lets in the outside water; and the Yoga is the internal activity modifying the state of the Soul in correspondence with the character of the in-coming organic matter. But in order that