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The Jaina Conception of Self

 

By Mr. G. G. Mukhopadhyaya

 

The search of philosophy, especially in India, is a search for the self or soul. Self or soul denoted consciousness and it is this wondrous phenomenon of consciousness that has engaged the attention of all thinking beings since the dawn of human civilisation. In India it was known as the Atmavidya, the supreme science or knowledge as distinguished from Aparavidya, which was concerned with the knowledge of other material things.

Some may object that the searched for the self was not universally accepted in India as the supreme object of enquiry, as is proved by the existence of such systems as the Carvaka, Bauddha, Jaina, etc. which are branded as heterodox as opposed to the orthodox systems, which had their roots in the Vedas. But we forget that even the Carvaka, who are known as materialists, are engaged in explaining the fact of the consciousness and this they do in terms of the material body. The Buddhists, who are called nihilists because they do not admit the existence of anything permanent, much less of a permanent self, have still to engage themselves in finding out the nature of consciousness, which they ultimately consider to be of a fleeting nature. The flow of consciousness has still to be admitted by them and even in reducing all existence to Zero or void they have to do it on the strength of the analysis of the fact of consciousness, which they demonstrate proves it to the hilt. The position of the Jainas in this matter stands on an unique footing. They not only affirm the existence of the self or soul but show its infinite varieties, which no other system of Indian philosophy has done with such details. The Jaina system of philosophy is, therefore, atmavadi to the core and its entire interest centres round this one concept of soul. It will be therefore fruitful to take note of this concept from the Jaina point of view.

Every philosophy system has some fundamental categories through which they have tried to explain the world of experience. The Jaina consider them to be nine in number (navatatva) and the very first of them is Jiva , the soul, which shows that it occupies the very first and most important position among the tatvas or categories. One may think that the Jainas are not concerned with the search for the Self, the immutable and all-pervasive principle of the Vedanata or the Upanisads but are interested in its embodied existence as soul, in its expression though life and in this they are more realistic in their outlook than the Vedanta. But in describing the essential nature of jiva , they do not differ from the Vedanta or the Upanasadic literature, for it is cetana or citsvarupa. This cetana or Jnana is inherent in the Jiva and is not a by-product as is sought to be affirmed by the Naiyayikas. According to the Jainas there is a scale of consciousness and consequently an infinite grade of beings or selves, at the top of which is the Paramatman or Sarvajna, the omniscient Being, who is like an ideal which man should try to attain or aim at. But this Paramatman is not god, who creates, preserves and destroys the world. The Jaina view denies God and extols man, than whom there is no higher power to be worshipped or adored. No other system of philosophy does uphold the dignity of man in such a manner as we find in the Jaina system. This view seems to be a vindication of that famous utterance in the Bhagavad Gita:

Uddhared atmanatmanam
natmanamavasadyet
atmaiva hyatmano bandhur
atmaiva ripuratmanah

Man, himself, is the creator of his own destiny. It is at once the knower, actor and enjoyer. It knows the objects around, acts to get hold of them or to avoid them and enjoys the respective fruits of its action, either in the form of pleasure or pain. The Jaina conception of the self or soul is thus distinct from both the Vedantic and Samkhya view, who do not recognise kartritva in the self though admitting Jnatritva and bhoktritva. According to them, the self can not be an actor, it can only be the knower and the enjoyer. But the Jainas make the Atman active by its own nature and consequently whatever it enjoys as a bhokta is nothing but the fruits of its own action performed as karta.

While thus affirming the dignity of the self by making it the architect of its own destiny, the Jaina view further upholds the unique nature of the self by stating that the infinite number of souls retain their individuality throughout, neither destroying it altogether nor merging it in the individuality of any other superior being. It is thus sharply distinguished from the Upanisadic view which is stated thus again and again in many of the Upanisads :

Yatha nadyah syandamanah samudre 
astam gacchanti namarupe vihaya
tatha vidvan namarupad vimuktah
paratparam purusam upaiti divyam

Mundaka 3. 2. 8. Or again :

pare avyaye sarva ekibhavanti - Ibid.

3. 2. 7. Still again :
yatho' dakam suddhe suddham
asiktam tadrgeva bhavati
evam muner vijanata
atma bhavati gautama - Katha 4-5

and reaffirmed thus :

Sa yathema nadyah syandamanah samudrayanah samudram prapyastam gacchanti bhidyete tasam namarupe samudraity evam pro'cyate, evam evasya paridrastur imah sodasakalah purusayanah prapyastam gacchanti bhidyete tasam namarupe purusa ity evam procyate sa eso'akalo' amrto bhavati - Pradna, 6.5

From these statements no shadow of doubt is left that there is complete self-loss, according to the Upanisads, in the state of liberation which is conveyed by the most apt illustration of the streams merging in the ocean, losing their names and forms. But the Jainas will assert that even after liberation there is infinite progression for the individual soul. Thus in the Tattvarthasutra after enunciating the nature of moksa as kratsnakarma-irpramoksah (10.2). release from all action, it goes on to state :

Tadanantaram urdhvam gacchayta' lokantat (10.5) : There is thus no end of possibility for the evolution of the soul of man. And this evolution is unique for every individual soul. As rightly pointed out by Mahamahopadhyaya Dr. Gopinath Kaviraj , "the Jaina view seems to point to radical differences inherent in the soul in spite of their essential sameness of qualitative perfection. Apart from the basic difference due to Bhvyata in a soul, there are other differences as well, which in fact tend to make each soul unique. The Christian and Madhva views, together with similar ideas in other schools including Buddhism, point to similar outlook" But we beg to point out that though the Christian and Madhva views are akin to the Jaina view, there is still a marked difference in this that the former views, though retaining the individual entity of the self make it subservient to the supreme self, the Christian God or the Hindu Lord Visnu but the Jaina make the individual stand on his own with an entirely independent status.

According to the Jaina view, 'the life-history of a soul consists mainly of four stages : (i) the embroynic stage in the nigodha , (ii) the awakening of the inward tendency synchronizing with granthiveda, (iii) the beginning of a spiritual evolution marked by numerous gunasthanas ,and (iv) the perfection or Siddhi. Some souls do not come out into the evolutionary line at all, but those which come out are sure sooner or later to arrive at perfection. This promise of perfection to every man, this reassurance that all are destined for final realization who have taken the evolutionary line is an unique message of hope which the Jaina philosophy alone has held out to mankind.

Another important and unique feature of the Jaina theory of Self is its affirmation of the Madhyama parimana , the middle measure about the soul, denouncing both the theories about the vibhutva , its all-pervasive nature as well as anutva or microscopic nature. The self or soul is neither big nor small but just of the measure of the body. The Jainas refute the arguments by which the all pervasive nature of the self is sought to be established. They affirm that the argument put forward for the vibhutva of the atman on the ground of its being a nitya dravya or eternal thing like the akasa or the ether is faulty, as an absolutely eternal thing cannot be proved. If relatively eternal is meant then even an earthly jar may lay claim to such eternity on the ground of being a dravya or object but it can never be proved to be all pervasive. Similarly anutva or minuteness of the self lines beyond perception and is as such inadmissible.

This Jaina view of the Self being as big as the body it inhabits naturally leads one ot conclude that the Jainas take the self in the sense of the soul. As Dr. Jacobi suggests, the Jainas arrived at their concept ;of soul, not through the search after the Self, the self-existing unchangeable principle in the ever-changing world of phenomena, but through the perception of life. For the most general Jaina term for soul is life (Jiva), which is identical with Self (aya, atman). The Jainas do not propound a philosophy which is divorced from life. If there is a self which is all pervasive it is by itself imperceptible and so also a self which is minute like a hundredth part of a hundredfold split hair or of the size of a thumb, is equally beyond our comprehension. Consciousness being the characteristic of a soul, its presence can be found out only by the manifestation of its characteristic qualities in a material body. The Jainas' search for the Self is through the body. But one should not conclude from this that the Jainas equate the soul with the body, like the Carvakas. In this concrete living world of name and form, the self is always found in association with body, its sarira but such a Jiva in its pure state. The jainas therefore divide the jivas into two classes : Samsari and siddha. From eternal time, souls are in the world associated with matter and there is an infinite number of such souls, who retain their individuality throughout. The Jaina philosophy has made an unique contribution in the field of classification of souls from numerous points of view, sometimes , according to the place it inhabits or occupies , into four classes such as Devata , Manusya , Tiryaka and Naraki and again into five classes according to the number of senses it possesses and so on. Another interestin and original contribution with regard to the nature or type of the Jiva is the theory of lesya , the colouring material which gives a peculiar stamp to the soul from which it can be determined if the soul is pure or impure. The soul turns black when it is in touch with noble thoughts and emotions. There are also other shades of colour in between the Krisnalesya and the Suklalesya.

From the brief analysis of the concept of self as we have undertaken here, it is clear that the Jainas find the entire universe as replete with innumerable types of selves and that is why all life is sacred to them. Their staunch adherence to the creed of ahimsa is also born out of this concept of self. This concept also is a source of great encouragement and inspiration to all in as much as it holds out the hope of everybody working out his own salvation by casting off the shackles of Karma.

The Upanisads also declare that the manifestation of this nama and rupa , this world of name and form has been effected by the entry of the principle called Jivatman. (anene jivena atmanna anupravisya namarupe vyakaravani). The Jaina system of philosophy demonstrates as it were the truth of this Upanisadic statement by discovering at every layer of this manifest universe the existence of the soul. Samkara, though and Advaitist, has to admit that the purpose of the One becoming many has not yet been fulfilled and that is why we find this plurality of selves, this multiplicity of existence still flowing on as ever (tad eva bahubhavanam prayojanam na'dyapi nirortham ). The Jaina view of self does not turn its back from this basic fact of plurality nor does it try to explain it away as ephemeral like the Vedanta. On the contrary its gaze is fixed on each and every individual of these innumerable selves, watching its wondrous evolution stage by stage in the ascending scale of being, which is again unique in every case. It is therefore no wonder that the Jaina concept of self in not distinguished from the concept of soul because it is not divorced from life but is rootee in it. If we take the root meaning of the world atmna. Which is derived from the verb 'at' with the suffix 'manin' , then everyone will have to own that the Jaina view is the truest of all which conforms to the original sense of the word. The root 'at' implies constant movement (satayagamana) and the Jaina theory of the infinite progression of the self brings out this basic characteristic of the atman and that is why we affirmed at the outset that the Jainas are atmavadins in the truest sense of the term. The infinite possibility of human evolution is nowhere so clearly set forth as in this Jaina view of the self. God is also in the making and not a finished product to be adored and worshipped. The Jaina view seems to be echoing the memorable words of a famous poet of Bengal :

Sabar upare manus satya
tahar upare nai.

Above all is man, the only reality. Above him is nothing else. It will be fruitful, therefore, for all men to make a study of this wonderful concept of the self or soul.

 

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Source : Souvenir Published in 1974 By Shri Jain Swetamber Tirth, Pawapuri

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