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JAINA DOCTRINE OF KARMAN
(CH.
Now, in Jaina terminology, we can say that the Sankhya-Yoga (the Vedāntin also included) admits only material karman and not its spiritual counterpart as well while the Buddhist admits only the spiritual counterpart and not the material karman Karman, in the ultimate analysis, is a link between spirit and matter, and lasts as long as the worldly existence lasts. It co-ordinates the mutual changes of the spirit and the matter associated with the spirit. In the Sankhya-Yoga view, karman belongs exclusively to the prakrti and hence it is only the prakrti that is bound or emancipated. In the Buddhist view, the karman belongs exclusively to the consciousness and it is only the consciousness that is bound and emancipated. But the Jaina philosopher is not satisfied with this unilateral view of the worldly existence. Worldly existence means bondage of both spirit and matter, in relation to one another. Emancipation means emancipation of both spirit and. matter. If the various states of passions make up the bondage of the spirit the change of the material atoms into karmic matter makes up the bondage of matter. The freedom of a soul from the passions and their effects means also the freedom of karmic matter from association with the soul. The difficulty in the Nyāya-Vaiseșika position has already been stated.
So far we have considered the problem only as it crops up at the most developed level of our thought. But it will be profitable to throw a historical glance at the development at this stage of our enquiry. We found that the Sankhya-Yoga (the Vedantin also included), the Nyāya-Vaisesika and the Buddhist keep spirit or consciousness quite aloof from matter, while the Jaina attempts to establish concrete relation between them. It is necessary, if possible, to trace the origin of this difference between the Jaina and the non-Jaina views. For this purpose we are to travel back to hoary past of our thought, and to reconstruct, from the scanty materials that are still available, the structure of the thought of that age. Let us make an attempt.
The Vedic thinkers had a clear intuition of the unity of the multifold expressions of the universe. They saw unity 'in diversity, How, why, and when this intuition of unity dawned upon the Vedic mind is a problem too difficult to solve. One unitary principle, Sat or Asat, is regarded as the ground of all creation, conscious and unconscious. The conscious ego is as much an evolute of Sat or Asat as the unconscious elements. Different theories of evolution were developed on the basis of the recognition of this unitary principle which was further called Brahman as well as Prakyti. The conception of Sat, Asat, Brahman, or Prakrti as the ultimate ground of creation was the most important consummation of the Vedic thought. This ultimate ground is ubiquitous, subtle and unamenable to any sense-organ. It is the ground of everything and has no further ground. On the other
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