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180 :: Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism
(of karmas) physical effects may be short-lived, but their moral effects (saīskāras) are worked into the character of the self. Every single thought, word or deed enters into the living chain of causes which makes what we are.... Karma is not so much a principle of retribution as one of continuity” The study of the conscious principle in its mundane exstence means its study in association with the karma forces.
The Conception of Karma in Different Systems of Thought (i) The Nyāya-Vaišeşika and the Mīmāmsā Connceptions
The Nyāya-Vaiseșika school of Indian philosophy enumerates karma as one of its categories. This karma is not at all concerned with the deteminations of the soul's conditions. In the present context karma generally means the principle which somehow determines the forms of existence of the soul. For this the Nyāya-Vaišeșika formulates the conception of the adrsta which has a direct bearing on and shapes the soul's structure and behaviour. Hence in the Nyāya-Vaiseșika system the parallel of the Jaina conception of karma is the adrsta. Thus the karma for him, may be taken to be the potency of the conscious self for future behaviour. The behaviour itself may also be called by the same name, as it would also generate a potency for future behaviour; but mainly the term is used to denote the potency generated by our past actions. The adřsta is something generated in our souls by our own actions. Our actions so affect our souls that they gain some capacity for further actions. So "it is maintained that our good actions produce a certain efficiency called merit (punya), and bad actions produce some deficiency called demerit (pāpa) in our souls and these persist long after our actions have ceased and disappeared. This stock of merit and demerit accruing from good and bad actions is called Adrsta."? “The qualities of dharma and adharma are jointly designated as saņskāras or traces. These
1. S. Radhakrishnan: An Idealist View of Life, p. 275 2. Chatterjee and Datta: An Introduction to Indian Philosophy, p. 246
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