Jiva (the Self), the Conscious Soul, the First Navatattva

 

Jiva (Self), the Conscious Soul

The first cardinal principal is Jiva (Self). The essential attribute of jiva is life, vitality, soul or consciousness. Infinite knowledge, vision, power, bliss etc. are also the attributes of jiva. While the knowledge possessed by the jiva (atma, soul) may be boundless, jiva by itself, is limited. It is the jiva which suffers or enjoys the fruits of its deeds, and then, in consequence of the karma it has acquired, goes through the succession of rebirths, and finally, obtaining freedom through the destruction of its karma, attains moksha or liberation from the material world. Acharya Hemacharya describes the characteristics of jiva as follows:

              ‘It performs different kinds of action, it reaps the fruit of those actions, it circles round returning again; these and none other are the characteristics of soul. Jiva has further been described as a conscious substance, capable of development, imperceptible to the senses, an active agent, and as big as the body it animates.’

In a most interesting note Dr. Jacobi suggests that ‘the Jain saints have arrived at their concept of soul, not through the search after self, but through the perception of life. For the most general Jain term, soul is life and self is atman and both are identical’. The way in which jiva is divided and subdivided, building up from the lesser to the more developed life matches with Dr Jacobi’s contention. Jain lay stress on Life and not Self. Sometimes jiva itself is considered as a division of Dravya (substance), its chief characteristic being consciousness (Chaitanya). This conscious sentient principle jiva or atma, so long as it feels desire, hatred and other attachments and is fettered by karma, undergoes continual reincarnations. In each new birth it makes its home in a new form which is determined by the karma or deed done in the previous birth.

Self is subject as well as object of all meditation. The nature of self is, therefore, the most fundamental of all problems. Self is the stay of all our experiences. It is the truth which is achieved by the self. Acharya Neminath Siddhanta Chakravarti gave the following nine attributes of self.

i)  It is a conscious entity and is distinct from matter. 

ii)  It is endowed with apprehension and knowledge.

iii) It is an intangible entity.

iv)  It is the agent of actions.

v)  It is co-extensive with the body which is animated by it.

vi) It is the enjoyer of the fruit of its actions.

vii) It passes through births and deaths.

viii) It gets liberation.

ix) It has a natural potentiality of upward motion.

There is a clear distinction between the empirical self and transcendental self. From empirical point of view, the self is the agent of actions and it undergoes such experiences as those of pain and pleasure. From transcendental point of view, the self is pure, and free from material attachments. The self, which is bound, gets emancipated by efforts and shines in its pure intrinsic form. While, making distinction between the empirical and transcendental nature of self, it is found that the empirical self can be classified into many categories but transcendental self cannot be classified into any categories. A brief description of these categories of empirical self is given below.

From the point of view of intellect, the jivas are of two types: (i) Having mind, jivas of this class can distinguish between right and wrong e.g., human (ii) Having no mind, the jivas having one to four senses as also some of the five sensed jivas are included in this category.

From the point of view of Biology, the jivas are of two types: (i) mobile (Trasa) and (ii) immobile (Sthavara). The immobile or sthavara jivas have only one sense of touch and are called Ekendriya. The immobile jivas are divided into five classes which include (a) earth-bodied (prithvikayika), (b) water-bodied (apakayika), (c) fire-bodied (tejaskayika), (d) air-bodied (vayukayika) and (e) vegetable-bodied (vanaspatikayika). These jivas do not explicitly manifest the signs of life. But since they show the tendency to grow and decay, they are supposed to possess life. The Jain doctrine of non-violence is, therefore, not confined only to men or animals but embraces these mute, immobile jivas also. The other four kind of jivas from Dwindriyas to Panchendriyas are called Trasa or mobile jiva.

The Prana---The most perfectly developed jiva has ten pranas. Of these ten pranas, five are called Indriya prana, since they relate to the senses. They are

the sense of touch (Sparsendriya);

 the sense of taste (Rasanendriya);

the sense of smell (Ghranendriya); 

the sense of sight (Darshanendriya); 

the sense of hearing (Sravanendriya).

There are also three other powers known as Bala prana: bodily power (Kayabala), speech (Vachanbala) and mind (Manobala). The ninth prana, Anapana prana or (Swasocchvasa) gives the power of respiration; and the tenth prana, Ayu prana, is the allotted span of life during which the jiva has to sustain a particular bodily form or in one word its longevity.

In order to understand jiva more, the Jain divide it according to the class of being in which its past karma may force it for a time to take up its abode. The first division which they make is Siddha or mukta or liberated and Samsari or mundane. Those who have attained Nirvana by exhausting all karmas are called Mukta (free) or Siddha (perfect). They are also called liberated souls. They are endowed with infinite knowledge, infinite vision, infinite power and infinite bliss; after nirvana they never come back to this mortal world. The Siddha has no visible form as it is free from ajiva (matter) which gives a bodily form to the jiva. Mundane Mukta jiva are of two types: i) Yogi and ii) Ayogi. The Arhat comes under the Yogi division. They can destruct their karma by pursuing extreme penance and attain nirvana. Acharya, Upadhyaya and Monks come under the Ayogi subdivision. Acharya are those who practice the five vows with perfection, who can control their Indriyas or sensory organs and who have knowledge about the religion. Upadhyaya are those who practice Triratna i.e., Samyak Darshan, Samyak Jnan and Samyak Charitra and who are brave, selfless and can explain the religion properly. The monks are those who are free from mundane life, spend their life in worship of philosophy, religion, character and penance and are ideal to teach morality to ordinary people.

The Jain divide the Samsari class of jiva into three divisions: male, female and neuter. The Samsari may be classified in four ways according to the place where it was born. Jiva born in heaven are called Devata; those humans born on earth are called Manusya; those born in hell are called Naraki and the insects, birds, reptiles, animals, plants or those born in a state lower than human are called Tiryak.

Jiva may be classified in five ways according to the number of senses it possesses. They are Ekendriya, Dwindriya, Trindriya, Chaturindriya and Panchendriya.

 Ekendriya jiva possess only one sense, the sense of touch.

Dwindriya jiva possess two senses, the sense of touch and taste.

Trindriya jiva possess three senses, the sense of touch, taste and smell.

Chaturendriya jiva possess four senses, the sense of touch, taste, smell and vision.

Panchendriya jiva possess five senses, the sense of touch, taste, smell, vision and hearing.

Ekendriya jiva are subdivided into Prithvikaya, Apakaya, Teukaya, Vayukaya and Vanaspatikaya. Things belonging to the earth, such as stones, lumps of clay, salts, chalk, diamond and other minerals, are called Ptithvikaya ekendriya. The longest span for which a jiva can be compelled into Prithvikaya is longest twenty-two thousand years and the shortest forty-eight moments. The Ekendriya Prithvikaya  jiva have four pranas. As the jiva’s karma is exhausted, it can reborn into better conditions. These earth lives can be visible or invisible to the human eye. By ill-treating any earth life, we are doing wrong deeds which will affect our karma.

Apakaya Ekendriya jiva include rain, dew, fog, melted snow etc. The shortest span a jiva can pass in water is one moment, though it may have to wait for at least forty-eight moments for rebirth; but the longest time its karma can condemn it is seven thousand years.

A man’s karma again may force him to become a Teukaya Ekendriya, or fire life and he may have to pass into an ordinary fire, the light of a lamp, a magnet, electricity, a meteor, flintstone sparks, a forest conflagration. One can only be condemned to be a fire life for a period varying from one instant to three days (seventy-two hours).

All sorts of wind, such as cyclones, whirlwinds, monsoons, west winds and trade-winds, are inhabited by Vayukaya ekendriya jiva. The period a jiva may spend as wind varies according to his karma from one instant to three thousand years.

All vegetable life or Vanaspatikaya also possesses one indriya. These jiva are divided into two classes: Pratyeka life of a tree and its branches, leaves, fruits and flowers possess life derived from it and Sadharana, the life possessed by the root having countless bodies, e.g., potatoes, onions, carrots, figs etc. Strict Jain will not eat such root vegetables because more than one jiva have taken up its lodging there. Life as a vegetable may last from one instant to ten thousand years.

Dwindriya jiva possess two senses, taste and touch and six pranas: taste, touch, body, power of exhaling and inhaling, an allotted term of life and speech. They survive for a maximum of twelve years. Examples of such animalcule are worms, things living in shells, leeches, earth-worms etc. Monks vow not to kill anything in the Ekendriya class but non-killing for laymen starts from the Dwindriya class. To hurt as little as possible, Jain monks cover their mouth with cloth. Monks never snap their fingers, or fan themselves, lest they should injure air.

Trindriya jiva have sense of touch, taste and smell and so possess three indriya and seven pranas. In this class are ants, bugs and moths.

Chaturendriya jiva possess four senses of touch, taste, smell and sight and eight pranas. Scorpio, mosquito, fly, butterfly comes under this division.

Panchendriya jiva possess five senses of touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing and have nine pranas. Some have an extra prana, that of mind are called Samjni panchendriya, whilst the rest who have nine pranas are called Asamjni. There are four divisions of Panchendriya jiva: hell being, human being and demigod possessing intelligence and some animals, and animals having no intelligence.

Reference:

The Heart of Jainism by Mrs. Sinclair Stevenson, 1915, Oxford University Press.

Lord Mahavira, His Life and Doctrines by Puran Chand Samsookha, 1957, Publisher Jain Swetambar Terapanthi Mahasabha, Kolkata.

Jaina Ethics by Dayanand Bhargava, 1968, Publisher Motilal Banarsidass Pvt. Ltd., Delhi. 

Prashnottare Jaina Dharma by Satya Ranjan Bandopadhyaya, 1997, Publisher Jain Bhawan, Kolkata. Written in Bengali.