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BUDDHISM
As we have stated many times, and now, for the last time, inust state again, the Jainas represented the crystal of the lifemonad (jīva) as defiled by a physical karmic coloring substance (lesya), which, on entering ii, darkened its intrinsic light. This subtle physical influx (īsrava) had to be literally stopped, and the darkening matter then allowed to evaporate or burn away by becoming converted into experience, biography, suffering, and destiny-which was a comparatively simple, materialistic reading of the problem. The later Indian view, as represented in the classic, semimaterialistic systems of the Sankhya, Yoga, and Upanişads, then regarded the life-monad (Sānkhya and Yoga: purusa), or the Self (Upanisads: ātman), as forever undefiled, like the sun; only the soul-faculties clustering around it were in darkness-and this was a darkness, furthermore, rather of ignorance than of literal involvement. No longer was karmic matter pouring into the kernel of our being, as in the formula of the Jainas, but a veil of ignorance was cutting off the light. And we had merely to dissolve this cloud by bringing to bear upon it the power of its opposite: viveka (discrimination), vidyā (knowledge). The unresolved question remained, however, as to the nature of the cloud, and this, as we have scen, furnished a theme for inexhaustible debate. One way or another, no matter how the philosophers turned the problem, a second spliere of forces (however defined, however rationalized, however devaluated by unsavorable descriptions) had to be admitted into the system as a counter to the sphere of “That Which Truly Is.” And the two had then to be co-ordinated in some kind of not quite satisfying, unrelated relationship.
The mind, for example, is part of the bodily system, though it mirrors, jisually imperfectly, the light of the spirit. The mind is not uninvolved. It is not an absolutely unconcerned visitor from a higher rcalm. On the contrary, most of it is colored, tinged and biased, limited and supported, by the nature and material of the individual body, on and in which it grows, and
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| 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 |