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PROBLEM OF AVIDYA
[ch.
must be a way of release from this imperfect state. The soul has got an inherent and inalienable right to perfection, though the conception of perfection is not uniform or identical so far as the positive content of it is understood. But, negatively speaking, it is admitted that there is recovery from unfreedom and the misery of infirmity and limitation of power. The Saiva schools which we have surveyed are also in agreement with others so far as this fundamental standpoint and attitude are taken into account. It is the common presupposition of all schools of thought that the recovery of the innate nature of the self constitutes the extinction of all pain and suffering, which is the corollary of emancipation. This worldly existence is to be transcended. And human resources are equal to this task. This is the fundamental datum and postulate of philosophical and ethical speculations and the goal of religious disciplines. The nature and content of emancipation therefore are bound up with the metaphysical conception of the original nature of self.
The Saiva conception of individual self differs from that of other schools and therefore the conception of final emancipation is bound to be different. The Saiva believes that the self is essentially a conscious principle, and joy and bliss and freedom are integral to its nature. The Jaina philosopher would agree on this point. The belief in the innate power of the self for knowledge, will and action will also be endorsed by the Jaina. It would also be conceded that the relation of power and the possessor of it is one of inseparability. But while the Saiva insists on asserting it to be a relation of identity the Jaina would interpret it as identity-in-difference. The Jaina also would agree with the Saiva in regarding the cause of bondage as real and not imaginary or a case of unreal superimposition as the Vedāntist maintains. This cause of bondage is designated by the Saiva as mala (contamination or taint) as we have seen. Barring the terminological difference the Jaina would have no objection to the conception of karma-pāśa or kārma-mala as the fundamental cause of bondage and as for the other contaminations such as ānava-mala and māyāya-mala the Jaina would regard them as consequential. The association of karman with the soul is responsible for the limitation of its capacity for knowledge, perversion of will and inhibition of powers of enjoyment and self-expression and also assumption of psycho-physical organism. The difference is rather a matter of elaboration and nomenclature and point of view. Omniscience and omnipotence are regarded as necessarily coexistent in Jainism. Here we meet with a difference from the Saiva point of view. The Saiva philosopher believes in the possibility of the emergence of omniscience on the dawn of suddha-vidyā in the soul irrespective of the extent to which the corresponding power of action
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