Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism

Author(s): S C Jain
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

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36 :: Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism
permanence of Vedānta. A substance by its very nature, undergoes variations, still it is able to maintain its identity. Hence sat has been defined as the copresence of origination, decay and permanence." The secret of the Jaina dynamism of substance lies in the fact that the substance undergoes variations by negating old forms of existence and assuming new ones and thereby safeguarding its persistence. Mc Taggart has very correctly remarked: “Thus the continuity of the attributes is always sufficient to preserve personal identity, not because it would be sufficient if the substance changed, but because it proves that the substance remains unchanged."2 Continuity and change are coexistent in a real. There is no temporal distinction among the states of origination, decay and permanence. It is one existence which implies origination, decay and permanence simultaneously. Hence a substance would mean origination, decay and permanence in one. Amrtacandra Sūri remarks: "There is no creation without destruction, no destruction without creation, no creation and destruction without persistence, and no persistence without creation and destruction.”3 Bergson also observes: “At the very instant that my consciousness is extinguished, another consciousness lights up or rather, it was already alight: it has arisen the instance before, in order to witness the extinction of the first, for the first could disappear only for another and in the presence of another”4. Appearance and disappearance or origination and decay must be taken to be copresent; and it is possible only when the same entity is able to imply them simultaneously. The aforesaid trio cannot be given the status of an attribute or a mode in a substance for fear of selfcontradiction. Still the Jaina stresses its ontological validity; and by that be means that it is not a mental construction but has objective reality as a trait or a dharma. Samantabhadra
1. Ibid., 5.30 2. Mc Taggart: Studies in Hegelian Cosmology, p. 50 3. Amộtacandra: Pravacansāra (Tattvārtha-dipikā-vrtti), p. 136 4. Henri Bergson: Creative Evolution (Translated by Arthur Mitchell),
1944, p. 303