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· The first awakening of the soul from its beginningless slumber is a great mystery. No systematic account of the first awakening is possible as the matter is involved in great mystery which our intellectual faculties and powers of rational thinking cannot unveil. This mystery is as profound as a mystery of a sleep of the soul if explicit in these terms. All the systems of Indian thought have been constrained to admit that the entire process from one intellectual point of view must be declared as a series which has no beginning. The soul by its very nature is pure and perfect. The reason why and the manner in which it first lost its self-awareness cannot be intelligible to the mind however strong its power of analysis may be. It has remained the mystery throughout the ages. In the same manner the way in which the sleep is broken for the first time is also similarly mysterious.
We have scattered accounts of the way in which the first awakening takes place and from this we shall have to deduce our own conclusions. The Jaina thinkers who also admit the mundane life as beginningless in time have tried to tackle this problem very cleverly and have expressed their views in the form of certain profound doctrines or what is called Karmans namely Yathāpravịttikaraṇa Apūrvakarana, Anivrttikarapa etc. This implies that though the Avidyā or ignorance has been functioning in the soul from a beginningless eternity, there is no doubt that the seed of vidyā also exists in the soul in an undeveloped condition from eternity. In the mundane life of the soul, in course of time at some unknown moment the seeds of Vidyā begin to express themselves. When this particular moment arrives one cannot say, but it does come sooner or later in the life of every soul. At that time it so happens that the function of Avidya becomes suspende' as it were for an Antarmuhūrta and the first glimpse of enlightenment begins to reveal itself,
