Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism

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

Page 76

72 :: Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism
dvaita can also be proved simply by making a statement.” Mallişeņa contends “If māyā is existent, two entities are proved. If it is non-existent how can it generate the empirical world? If māyä generates the world-process in a delusive way, then it is like calling the same woman a mother and a barren lady."
The true value of idealism lies in its emphasis on the spiritual side of existence and its ethical import. Dr. Deva Raj mentions that idealism negates the existence of the external world to arouse the spirit of renunciation. He also quotes the view of Vitthaleśa upādhyāya that Advaita Vedānta holds the universe to be delusive so that a spirit of renunciation may be awakened among the disciples. A parallel view is upheld by the Jaina thinker Kundakunda. He adopts an ethical viewpoint and draws a distinction between the self and the non-self. The self is certainly distinct from pudgala (matter), but, as he propounds, it cannot also be identified with psychical functions like anger, pride, etc. According to Kundakunda the psychical functions can be attributed to a soul only from the empirical (vyavahāra) view-point which has been condemned as false (mithyā) by him. The falsity of the Jaina empirical view-point is not like the falsity or māyā in Advaita Vedānta. Advaita Vedānta wrongly accepts the falsity of māyā in the region of metaphysics; Jainism, on the other hand, confines this falsity to the region of ethics beyond which the truth of the empirical world is as integral to the Jaina theory of existence as that of the transcendental world.
Berkeley's View of the Soul
Berkeleyan idealism starts with the facts of perception. In our perception what we get of the external things is nothing but our own ideas. On this ground Berkeley
1. Samantabhadra: Aptainimāmsā, verse 26, 27 2. Mallişeņa: Syādvādamañjari, p. 52 3. Cf. Purvi aur Paścimi Darśana (Hindi), p. 178