Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism

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

Page 99

The Soul :: 95
action of the mind alone, but action of mind and body in one". Our basic problem is how mind and body come to enter into such a close relationship; and in spite of explaining the relation it seems to have been presumed by Stout. According to him mind and body unite to give rise to human personality; and thus he leaves the problem of the mind-body relation unsolved. The opposition of mind and body still persists in the region where mind and matter stand as constituents of human personality. Such inconsistencies must arise, if an absolute distinction between mind and matter is maintained.
The Jaina on the Problem of Mind-Body Relation
The Jaina theory of mind-body relation is neither interactionism nor parallelism of the aforesaid type. The Jaina formulates the theory of nimitta (auxiliary) causation to explain the relation between the soul and the non-soul. It lays emphasis on the fact that the different substances work in coordination with each other, thereby maintaining their individuality and also helping each other's function. According to this theory there is no mutual transformation of the two substances or their attributes but the one, by accepting the upakāra (virtual action) of the other undergoes transformations in its own constitution. The nimitta theory of causation presupposes a capacity in both the soul and the non-soul by virtue of which the mutual upakāra becomes possible. The manifestation of the one is simply an occasion to the manifestation of the other, as the occasionalist held. His divine interference may be interpreted to be an inherent capacity of the substances themselves. Such a capacity must be presupposed to account for the close relation between the soul and the non-soul. This is perhaps the preestablished harmony between the two partially different substances as Leibniz thought. Jainism, though it does not accept mutual transformation of substances, never denies
1. Ibid., p. 92