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Kundakunda versus Sämkhya on the soul
17
Johannes BRONKHORST
There have been several conceptions of the soul in the history of Jainism. The probably oldest text of the Svetämbara Jaina canon, the Acäränga Sutra | Ayäramga Sutta, has some passages that reveal an idea about the soul that is very different from what came to be the classical Jaina conception. Dalsukh D. Malvania (1981) and others have drawn attention to Ayäramga 176, which describes the soul in the following terms:
"It is not long nor small nor round nor triangular nor quadrangular nor circular; it is not black nor blue nor red nor green nor white; neither of good nor bad smell; not bitter nor pungent nor astringent nor sweet; neither rough nor soft; neither heavy nor light; neither cold nor hot; neither harsh nor smooth. It does not have a body, is not born again, has no attachment and is without sexual gender. While having knowledge and sentience, there is nonetheless nothing with which it can be compared. Its being is without form, there is no condition of the unconditioned. It is not sound nor form nor smell nor flavour nor touch or anything like that." (tr. Jacobi, 1884: 52, emended as in Dundas, 2002: 43).
Ayäramga 171, moreover, states:
"That which is the soul is that which knows, that which is the knower is the soul, that by which one knows is the soul." (tr. Dundas, 2002: 44).
The classical Jaina concept of the soul finds already expression in other texts of the Śvetämbara canon. A verse of Uttarajjhayana chapter 36 states:
"The dimension of perfected [souls] is two-thirds of the height which the individual had in his last existence" (tr. Jacobi, 1895: 212, modified).
The Viyahapannatti (7.8) compares the soul, which may cover the volume of an elephant or of a louse, with a lamp that lights up the space in which it is placed, sometimes a hut, sometimes the space determined by a cover (Deleu, 1970: 139). A short reference to the body-like size of the soul is also found in one of the concluding
