Page Text
________________
THE JAINA DOCTRINE OF BONDAGE
To go on living means to go on being active-in speech, in body, or in mind; it means to go on doing something every day. And this results in the storing up involuntarily of the "seeds" of future action, which grow and ripen into the "fruits" of our coming sufferings, joys, situations, and existences. Such “secds" are represented as entering and lodging in the life-monad, where, in due time, they become transformed into the circumstances of life, producing success and calamity and weaving the mask-the physiognomy and character--of a developing individual. The process of life itself consumes the karmic substance, burning it up like fuel, but at the same time attracts fresh material to the burning center of vital operations. Thus the life-monad is reinfected by
na. New seeds of future fruits pour in. Two contradictory yet exactly complementary processes are kept, in this way, in operation. The secds, the karınic materials, are being exhausted rapidly all the time through the unconscious as well as the conscious actions of the psychosomatic system, and yet through those identical actions the karmic storage bins are being continually re-stocked. Hence the conflagration that is one's life goes crackling on.
This self-supporting, continuous, dual process (the karmic seedsubstance of the six colorings 75 burning itself out into events that themselves replenish it) is regarded as taking place-in a very literal, physical sense-in the subtle sphere or body of the lifenionad (jiva). 76 The continuous influx (āsrava) 77 of subtle matter into the life-monad is pictured as a kind of pouring in of liquid colorings, which then tinge it; for the lise-monad is a subtle crystal, which, in its pristine state, untinged by karmic matter, is stainless, devoid of color, and perfectly transparent; the flow entering the clear body darkens it, infecting it with the color (leśyā) corresponding to the moral character of the committed act. Virtuous acts and the lighter, venial offenses impart comparatively
76 Cf. supra, p. 229. 76 Cf. supra, pp. 227-229. 77 Cf. supra, p. 280.
249
| SR No. | 007309 |
| Book Title | Philosophies of India |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Heinrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell |
| Publisher | Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd |
| Publication Year | 1953 |
| Total Pages | 709 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 34 MB |