Book Title: Studies in Jainism
Author(s): Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture Culcutta
Publisher: Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture Culcutta
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STUDIES IN JAINISM
of ignorance, of the values of things have been briefly classified into two categories, viz. attachment and hatred. Although attachment and hatred are the origin of violence, yet the root cause of all evils is ignorance or darsanamoha or avidyā. Ignorance therefore is the root cause of violence. All those systems of thought which believe in the self agree on this issue.
The karma, whose nature has been described above, is technically known as bhava-karma in Jainism. It is a kind of samskara existing in the self. This bhava-karma attracts the subtle material atoms that always surround the self and gives them a definite form. The group of material atoms thus determined is called dravya-karma or the karmic body (karmana sarira), which follows the self in the next birth and forms the ground for the constitution of a new body. Although a cursory study shows that the conception of dravya-karma is a peculiarity only of the Jaina doctrine of Karma, and is absent in the doctrines of the other systems, yet a deep study will clearly show that this is not the fact. In such systems as the Samkhya, the Yoga, and the Vedānta, there is the description of the subtle or the linga body which transmigrates to different births. This body has been regarded as constituted by such evolutes of Prakrti (primordial principle of matter) of Māyā (the basic principle of illusion) as the internal organ (antah-karana), the egosense (abhimana), the mind (manas), etc., and is obviously the substitute for the kārmic body of the Jains. Even the Nyāya-Vaiseșika school, which does not clearly admit such a subtle body, has accepted the atomic mind which transmigrates from one birth to another. The fundamental basis of the conceptions of the subtle body and the kärmic body is the same. If there is any difference, it is only with reference to its mode of description and elaboration and classification.
Like the Sārnkhya-Yoga, the Vedānta, the NyāyaVaiseșika, and the Buddhist systems, Jainism believes that the association of karma with the soul is beginningless, because the beginning of that association is absolutely beyond the limit of knowledge. All the systems have unanimously admitted that, from the point of view of the chain
