Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism

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

Page 93

The Soul :: 89
volition be the function of a non-entity. Hence they must be the states of a something which exists, consequently of a substance." The psychical functions may be taken to be the modes of the substance of the soul, while the facts of the mental structure may be taken to embody an analytical view of the same entity. B.L. Atreya observes: "In the zeal to acquire the status of an exact science psychology has really lost its soul and has been wasting much of its time in aping the lower sciences of Mathematics, physics and chemistry, which are built on a Method which fails in the field of psychology unless supplemented by another which is peculiarly its own."2 So long as psychology does not take the soul as the most fundamental principle behind the structure and the functions of the mind, it remains to be an incomplete science of the psyche. The psychical functions and structure must be supposed to have a substantial basis. C.R. Jain observes: “Nothing that exists can exist, or be the abode of qualities, independently of a substantive basis. The mind, too, must, therefore, be a substance."3 Psychology cannot base the reality of mind on something which is not conscious in itself. Nothing less than a conscious substance can account for the mental structure and the mental functions. According to Bausfield “the basis of memory is not recorded in the protoplasmic structure but in immaterial psychic structure. Such a structure involves the conception of a substance of which it is built....Psychoplasm in our vocabulary stands for the immaterial substance of which the psychical structure is built."4
Dualistic Theories of the Soul and the Position of Jaina Dualism
Mind and matter are the facts of common experience. Whether we make a start with spirit or with a neutral
1. C. R. Jain: Key of Knowledge, p. 44. 2. B.L. Atreya: An Introduction to Para Psychology, p. 1. 3. C.R. Jain: Jaina Psychology (1934), p. 2. 4. Mc Dougall: Modern Materialism, p. 103.