Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism

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

Page 42

38: Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism
permanence as modes of the same attribute most follow in succession. This would mean that for a moment the real is only origination or decay or permanence; and the next moment one of these three modes is transformed into another. Permanence which changes into decay or origination, and decay and origination which change into permanence are meaningless, Hence in the Anekanta philosophy change and permanence are consistently united in the region of traits or dharmas. The copresence of change and permanence is the very soul of the Jaina dynamism.
Absolutism of Dynamism of Reality Considered
There are thinkers who uphold the absolutism of the modal side of substance. "Reality", according to Prof. James, "appears to be one stream of immediate experience, and nothing beyond this real".1 The Buddhistic philosophy of momentariness also propounds a similar view. “Buddha finds no centre of reality or the principle of permanence in the flux of life and the whirl of the world." This philosophy is not nihilsm, but it objects to the existence of the principle of continuity. The discreteness of existence is real, while the perception of continuity is a delusion. The two perceptions of discreteness and continuity are simultaneously had, but the former is considered faithful to reality while the latter is not held to be so. The difference between the associationists and the Buddhists is that for the former the perception of continuity is a creation of the percepient's mind, but for the latter there is a sort of modalization of latter events by the former ones. Se according to the Baudha there is a sort of objectivity in the form of a series of events, which determines the perception of continuity. The Jaina agrees with the associationists in holding that the perception of continuity is a psychic manifestation but is not purely determined by the mind. He also agrees with the Baudha in
1. Bradley: Essays on Truth and Reality, p. 99 2. Radhakrishnan: Indian Philosophy, vol. 1, p. 375