Samayasara OR Nature of Self

SR No.: 011119
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: A Chakravarti
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith
Publication Year: 1950
Total Pages: 406
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 38 MB

Page 137

CXXXVI
SAMAYASARA as they are technically called Chathur Gathis. These gathis are Devagathi, Manushyagathi, Thiryakgathi, and Naraka gathi. The first represents the class of devas living in what are called Devalokas. The second term Manushyagathi refers to the human being living in this world The third term refers to the sub-human creatures or lower animals of the zoological and botanical kingdoms which are found with mankind in this world The fourth term refers to the beings in the hell or the Naraka-Netherworld. The Devaloka or the upper world and Narakaloka the world of hell are recognised in Jaina cosmology, according to which the concrete world of living beings men and lower animals is called the Madhyama loka, the middle world All beings of these four different groups are called Samsara Jivas, that is a Jiva which is subject to the cycle of birth and death, which cycle is denoted by the term Samasara. All Samsarajivas are embodied according to their individual spiritual status. Each samsaric soul is born with a body and continues to live as embodied soul subject to growth, old age, decay and death, when it has to quit its body in search of another body it acquires another body consistent with and determined by its own karmic conditions Throughout the series of births and deaths thus associated with the appearance and disappearance of the corresponding body the underlying Jiva or the soul is a perpetual entity serving as a connecting thrcad of unifying the various births and deaths associated with that particular Jiva. This Samsara Jiva associated with its own karmic bondage and its own corporeal existence is considered to be uncreated and therefore beginningless. For the Jaina metaphysician the question when did the soul get associated with material body is a meaningless question, because they say Samsara is anadhi. The cycle of births and deaths has no beginning. Whatever may be the difference of opinion between Jaina metaphysics and the other schools of Indian thought, in this particular point all agree. All maintain that the Samsara is Anadhi. Hence no school of Indian thought would allow the question when did Samsara begin to be a sensible question. While all the systems maintain that Samsara is beginningless