Treatise on Jainism

Author(s): Jayantibhai S Sanghvi
Publisher: S J Sanghvi

Page 61

A Treatise on Jainism
but there is no consciousness behind it which in life received, and recorded, and responded to the ocular stimulus. The four or ten vitalities are sure signs to distinguish the living from the non-living; but in reality it is consciousness which distinguishes Life from Lifelessness. All this goes to prove that Body and Soul are two different things. Body is the abode of Soul. When the duration of time of the existence of Soul in the body comes to an end, the body is left and the Soul according to the Ayushya Karma (its deeds in this birth by which he earns the life-span of the next birth) goes away to another place, takes a new birth, and there lives in a new body; when the duration in that birth comes to an end, it goes away to à third birth. There he puts on a third body. In this way from the eternal past, the line of births and deaths continues according to Karma (deeds of each Soul).
The matter (Pudgala) referred to above is of 6 kinds :
(1) Gross-gross, or very gross matter (solid)
e.g. a mountain, pillar of iron etc.
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