Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism

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

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be held to be interchanged. The former begins with spirit and the latter, with matter; but both of them come to the same world which includes both spirit and matter. So the entire criticism which was levelled against materialism finds application in case of idealism also. The transformation of consciousness into matter must suffer from the same fallacies which proved to be an obstruction in the way of materialism. Moreover, when the conscious principle is admitted to possess both the capacities for conscious and material transformations, it must not be held to be only conscious, for consciousness is only a form of manifestation of the underlying principle. Thus, like materialism, idealism also reduces itself to neutralism-a position to which any theory believing in the mutual transformations of consciousness and matter must lead.
Sankara's View of the Soul
Sankara's position may be held to be only a little different from what has been said about idealism so far. He tries to evade the aforesaid fallacy by introducing the principle of māyā in his system. In order that the creation of the world may not be real he assigns only an empirical reality to māyā and its workings. For the world of matter and individual souls māyā is held responsible in such a way that the Brahma is left out unaffected by it. As a matter of fact in a philosophy of absolute spirit there is no room for any other element. The absolutism and the immutability of spirit allow no status of existence to māyā. The difficulty is two fold. We cannot say that māyā is there, because in that case it will be the dualism of māyā and Brahma. We cannot say that māyā is not there, because, then, we shall not be able, to explain the world. To steer clear of the above difficulties Sankara develops the conception of levels of existence and resorts to the logic of view-points. He holds the truth of māyā only at the empirical level, while Brahma is true at the transcendental level. So māyā does not come out to be absolutely unreal; and Brahma does not show