Conception of soul in philosophy -- Jaina theory of soul -- considered
from noumenal and the phenomenal points of view -- Upayoga as
characteristic of soul -- bahiratman, antaratman and paramatman --
compared with distinction between `ME' and 'I' of William James -- seat of
the soul-classification of Samsari Jivas -- freedom of soul from Samsara.
I. The problem of the soul has been a perennial problem
in religion and speculative philosophy. Primitive man ha made a
distinction between body and soul. The burial of the dead with their
belongings and even the mummification of the Egyptians are based on such a
distinction between body and spirit. The philosophical concept of the soul
has developed from such primitive distinctions.
Anthropological evidence shows that the notion of Sol
and spirit was first formed by primitive man as an explanation of certain
features of his experience like dream an sleep. For him soul is an
ethereal image of the body. It is ethereal, tennous or filmy; and it
possesses the power (flashing quickly from one place to another. Yet it
was not conceived as purely immaterial. In Plato we find the emphatic
primacy of the psyche or soul in the dialogues from the Apology onwards to
In the Homeric thought psyche appears as a shadow
double of the body. But Socrates and Plato recognized the soul as mans
real selfSocrates said that we should aim at the perfection of our souls.
Plato shows that of all the things that man has 1 next to the gods, his
soul is the most divine and most truly his own.' Body in fact is the
shadow of the soul. Jowett says that Plato was concerned wit emphasizing
the priority of the soul to the body, towards the end of his life, as he
gave importance to the idea of good in the Republic and of beauty in the
Symposium.2 Plato said that the soul is immortal because its very idea and
essence is the self-moved and self moving, that which is the foundation
and the beginning of motion to all that moves besides.3
Plato reversed the primitive conception of the soul as
shadowy double of the body and identified the true as the soul, but he
preserves and accentuates the original animistic dualism. Approaching the
question with the scientific spirit, Aristotle started with the living
organism and defined the psyche as the principle of life. He distinguished
the different levels of psychical functions, from the vegetative to the
rational. The soul is the actualisation of the potentiality of life, and,
therefore defined as the 'entelechy', 'as the fulfilment of the body'.
The idea of the soul is intrinsically independent of the body implies the
conception of its substantiality. Conceiving the soul as a simple and
indestructible substance, the scholastic metaphysics was argued to
demonstrate its immortality. So did Plato emphasize the simple and
unitary nature of the soul.
In modern psychology, the idea of the soul is no longer
important. In its place has come the notion of self or 'the centre of
interest.' The word 'soul' is ambiguous. Sometimes it stands for mind,
sometimes for self and sometimes for both. The English word points to an
entity as the cause or vehicle of physical or psychical activities of the
individual person. The soul is a spiritual substance.
In Indian thought the word atmanhas undergone various changes. It is
little used in the Vedas. It primarily meant breath. In the Upanisads
another word, prana, is used for breath, and atman stands for the
innermost part of man. Man was atmavat. For the Upanisadic seers, the
soul as a propocition for all experiences Indian philosophies, with the
exception of Miayavada of Samkara and Ksanikavada of the Buddhists,
fundamentally agree about the nature of the soul as a pert manent, eternal
and imperishable substance. But the primitive Aryans believed that the
essence of man is continued after death in a shadowy existence in some
subtle bodily form. This is not the soul of the later philosophers.
Jacobi calls it psyche. This is the development of the primitive motion
of life after death lingering in some form. It is found even today in the
practice of sraddha. The psyche frequently spoken of as purusa and of the
size of the thumb (angustha-matra). At the time of death it departs from
the body. In the oldest Upanisads the psyche is described a eonstituted
by the prdnas, psycho-physical factors. Still these factors were not
regarded as principles of personality .
II. The idea of the soul has occupied an importar
position in Jaina philosophy. Jainism aims at the liberation of the soul
from the cycle of birth and death. The saving the soul is the Christian
ideal. In the Apology, Plato makes Socrates say that his mission was to
get men to care for their souls and to make them as good as they can be.
Jainism is dualistic. There is a dichotomous division
of categories. All things are divided into living and nonliving, souls and
non-souls. In the first verse of the Dravya samgraha, we read, "The
ancient among the great Jainas have described the dravyas as jiva and
ajiva." Jiva is a category and jiva personalized becomes human. Jainism
believes in the plurality of souls. Souls are substances distinct from
matter. Souls influence one another. But they are quit distinct from one
another and not connected in any higher unity. They may be called
spiritual monads. Jainism emphasizes the diversity of souls. Amongst the
Muslim theologians, Nazam and his school maintained that the soul is
Jainism considers the soul from two points of view :
the noumenal (niscaya naya) and the phenomenal (vyavahar naya). The
Dravyamcyogatarkana of Bhoja describes the distinction as mentioned in the
Visesavasykabhaisya by saying that the niscaya narrates the real things
and the vyavahar narrates things in a popular way. In the Samayasarc
Kundakundacarya points out that the practical standpoint is essential for
the exposition of the inner reality of things, canonAryan is never capable
of understanding without the non-Aryan tongue. 
The existence of the soul is a presupposition in the
Jaina philosophy. Proofs are not necessary. If there are any proofs, we
can say that all the pramanas can establish the existence of the soul. "
Oh Gautama, the soul is pratyaksa", said Mahavlra, " for that in which
your knowledge consists is itself soul ". What is pratyaksa need not be
proved like the pleasure and pain of the body. It is pratyahsa owing
to the aham-pratyaksa, the realization of the I, which
is associated with the functions pertaining to all the three tenses.
William James and James Ward present self-consciousness in this form.
Ward talks of the 'internal perception' or self-consciousness. The last
order of knowledge of the duality of subject and object is an
indispensable condition of all actual experience however simple. It is.
therefore, first in order of existence. It is the subject of experience
that we call the pure ego or self. William James says, "For, this
central part of the self is felt. It is something by which we also have
direct sensible consciousness in which it is present, as in the whole life
time of such moments. Thus, one who ignores the self-evidence of the
soul is like one who says that sound is inaudible and the moon is devoid
of the moon. The existence of the soul can be inferred from the behavior
of others. Similarly, the soul exists because, " it is my word, O Gautama"
The jiva is described from the noumenal and phenomenal
points of view. From the noumenal point of view, the soul is described in
the pure form. The phenomenal describes the empirical qualities of the
soul. From the pure point of view, it is not associated with body or any
physical or mental qualities. Mahavlra points out to the third Ganadhara
that the soul is different from the body and its sense is just as
Devadatta recollects an object perceived through the five windows of the
palace, which is different from the palace and the five windows, so also a
person recollecting an object perceived through the five senses of the
body is different from the senses and the body. The Buddhist
impermanence of the soul is also refuted. Buddhists had said that there
was no self except the khatldas. Kundakundacarya points out that from the
noumenal point of view the soul and the body are not one, although in
worldly practice the soul having a beautiful body is called beautiful and
fair like the beautiful body of the living Arhat. In the
Chandogyopanisad, in the dialogue between Yajnavalkya and Janaka, the idea
of the self is progressively brought out by showing that it is not a
physical entity nor a dream-state.
From the noumenal point of view, the soul is pure and
perfect. It is pure consciousness. From the real point of view, the soul
is unbound, untouched and not other than itself. The soul is one and not
composite. In the Sthanainga we get a description of the soul as one (ege
atta). The commentator describes it as 'ekavidhah atmanah. In
Sama-yasara, Kundakundacarya describes the absolute oneness of the soul
"on the strength of my self-realisation". This does not contradict the
plurality of souls in Jainism. Only emphasizes the essential identity of
souls. Jivas in all-their in living all characteristics are essentially
the same. If the souls were one, then, "O Gautama, there would not be
sukha, duhkha, bandha, moksa etc. ' Individual souls are different like
The nature of jiva has been well described by Nemi
candra in his Dravyasamgraha. He describes the soul both from the noumenal
and phenomenal points of view. He say that jiva is characterized by
upayoga, is formless and is a agent. It has the same extent as its body.
It is the enjoyer of the fruits of karama. It exists in samsara. It is
siddha and has a characteristic of upward motion. We get a
similar description in the Pancastikayasara of
Kundakundacarya. Jiva is formless. It is characterized by upayoga. It is
attached to karma. It is the Lord, the agent and the enjoyer of the fruits
of Karma. It pervades bodies large or small. It has a tendency to go
upward to the end of loka, being freed from the impurities of Karma.
The Tattvarthasutra describes the nature of the soul as possessing upayoga
as its essential characteristic.
Every Jiva possesses an infinite number of qualities.
Glasenapp, in his Doctrine of Karma in Jaina Philosophy, mentions eight
1. The faculty of ominisicence (kevala-jnana)
2. The faculty of absolute undifferentiated congnition
3. Superiority over joy and grief.
4. Possession of belief in complete religious truth (samyaktva),
and irreproachable moral conduct (caritra)
5. Possession of eternal life (akasayasthiti).
6. Complete formlessness (amurtatva)
7. Unrestricted energy (viryatva).
8. Complete equality in rank with other jivas.