The Jain 1988 07

Author(s): Natubhai Shah
Publisher: UK Jain Samaj Europe

Page 90

gain
that he, or she, has control of the influx of karma and that there are ways in which the elimination of past karma may be hastened. A few lines earlier it was said that the individual 'generates' his own karma. The inverted commas were used because this is a very loose way of describing the way in which karma becomes associated with the individual soul Jain scholars have, over many centuries, rationalised and explained the process by which this association takes place. To simplify to the extreme, certain particles are caused to flow to the individual soul (jiva) by 'vibrations in the soul set up by activity, whether of body, speech or mind. This inflow is called asrava. If in fact activity is linked with passion (kasaya) then the soul is receptive to the particles and they become associated with the soul as karma, a process known as 'binding' (bandha). Perhaps 'passion' is not the best translation of kasaya, for the English word connotes generally feelings of great strength. It is better to define kasaya as 'violating the limits of equanimity': it may be violent, or only moderate. At this point a word needs to be said regarding the Jain view of the nature of karma. All things in the universe are either jiva (souls) or ajiva (non-soul). A major category of ajiva is matter, pudgala. One kind of matter is in the form of particles so fine that they cannot be perceived by the senses. These particles are capable of becoming karmic matter on association with the soul. Whilst many schools have described it as a kind of matter. It would not be correct to think of 'matter' in quite the same sense as the English word would convey : the word pudgala refers not only to gross matter proper, but also to such things as shade, sunshine, scent, sound, sweetness. The karmic particles are finer, less gross, even than these. The effects produced by karma cannot be numbered. If every action causes a karmic reaction, there are probably as many different ways in which the reaction may work out as there are possible actions producing it.
However broad systems of classification have been established, though different writers differ quite markedly on the details. First of all there is a division into two categories depending on whether the vibratory activity of the soul is, or is not, accompanied by passion. If not (possible only for a soul in the higher stages of spiritual accompishment), then the inflow of (karmic) particles is only fleeting and transient. Otherwise, when passion (as defined above) is present, the inflow to the soul results in the binding of karmic particles to it, with the effects described below. The causes of inflow have been analysed : 39 kinds of cause are given in a typical classification. Five result from the activities of the five senses, four from the four passions, five from the five major sins, and 25 from a miscellaneous collection of actions such as deliberately misinterpreting scriptural injunctions, inventing new sensory pleasures, or carelessness in various ways of the possibility of harm to living beings. These, again, may be subdivided according to the intensity of the activity, its intentional or unintentional nature, and in other ways. The different kinds of causes of karmic inflow result in the production of the different types of karma. The different types of karma are basically eight (though these are in their turn subdivided into, typically, 158 sub-categories). These indicate the sort of effects which the particular type will produce when associated with the soul, and are as follows:
1 Karmas which obscure in various ways the
soul's faculty of knowledge; 2 Which obscure the faculty of darsana
(indetermine apprehending); 3 which produce feelings; 4 which cause delusion as to right belief and
right conduct; which determine the duration of life in any of the four fields or rebirth, celestial, human, sub-human, hellish;
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