The first
characteristic of the soul is upayoga. The word upayoga is difficult to
define. It is the source of experience. The cognitive, conative and
effective aspects spring from it. It is differentia of the living
organism. Umasvati says that upayoga is the essential characteristic of
the soul.[18] Upayoga has conative prominence. Upayoga is that by which a
function is served: upayujyate anena iti upayogah. It is also described
as that by which a subjct is grasped. [19] In the Gommatasara: Jivakanda,
Upayoga is described as the drive which leads to the apprehension of
objects.[20] It is the source of the psychical aspect of experience. It
gives rise to the experience of objects, and the experience expresses
itself in forms of jnana and darsana. Upayoga is of two types: anakdra,
formless, and sakdra, possessed of form. Anakara Upayoga is formless,
indeterminate cognition. Sakara Upayoga is indeterminate cognition, a
defined form of experience. It would not be out of place to point out that
upayoga is not the resultant of consciousness as it is some-times
maintained. This was one of the earlier attempts to translate upayoga. Nor
is it a sort of inclination arising from consciousness. It is the conative
drive which gives rise to experience. It is, in fact, the source of all
experience. The Jaina philosophers were aware of the driving force of
experience, the force by which experience is possible. This may be likened
to the 'horme' of the modern psychologists. It may be called horme in the
sense that McDougall has used the term. It is a
vital impulse or
urge to action. Nunn has stated that horme is the basis of activity that
differentiates the living animal from dead matter. It is like
Schopenhauer's 'will to live', and Bergson's 'elan vital'. Jnana and
darsana are manifestations of upayoga.
The biological
studies of the lower animals from the amoeba onwards show that all animals
are centres of energy in constant dynamical relation with the world, yet
confronting it in their own characteristic way. A name was needed to
express this fundamental property of life, the drive or a felt tendency
towards a particular end. Some psychologists called it 'conation' or the
conative process. But this drive may not always be conscious.
There is the
presence of an internal drive in such processes. "To this drive or urge,
whether it occurs in the conscious life of men and the higher animals we
propose to give a single name.....horme".'[21] This activity of the mind
is a funlamental property of life. It has various other names like 'the
will to live' 'elan vital', the life urge and the libida. Horme under one
form or another has been the fundamental postulate of Lamarck, Butler,
Bergson and Bernard Shaw McDougall took great pains to present the hormic
theory of psychology as
against the mechanistic interpretaion of life and mind.
The hormic force
determines experience and behavior. We get conscious experience because
of this drive. The conscious experience takes the form of perception and
understanding. Horme operates even in the unconscious behavior of lower
animals. In the plants and animals we see it operate in the preservation
of organic balance. In our own physical and mental life we find examples
of horme below the conscious level. We circulate our blood, we breathe and
we did, just our food, and all these are the expressions of the hormic
energy. It operates at all levels both in the individual and the racial
sense.[22] But the horme expressed and presented by the Jaina philosophers
could not be developed and analysed in terms of the modern psychology,
because their analysis of Upayoga was surely an epistemological problem
tempered with metaphysical speculation. They were aware of the fact that
there is a purposive force which actuates and determines experience. This
is clear from the distinction between jiana and darsana as two forms of
upayoga.
Citta or cetana as
a characteristic of the soul is important in Indian philosophy. In the
Dravyasamgraha, jiva is described as possessing cetana from the noumenal
point of view. Cetana is a sort of inclination which arises from upayoga.
This inclination branches in two directions-jnana and darsana. Darsana may
be said to be undifferentiated knowledge Jnana is cognition defined. The
jiva has infinite jnana and darsana. But certain classes of Karman, like
jnanavarantya and Darsandvarantya tend to obscure and confuse the
essential nature of the jiva. From the phenomenal point of view, darsana
and jnana tend to manifest themselves in eight kinds of jnana and four
kinds of darsana.
The possession of
Upayoga raises the question whether the Jiva possesses upayoga and is yet
different from it, or whether it is identical with it.
The Nyaya theory does not recognize the identity of quality and its
possessor. Jainism assets that only from the phenomenal point of view they
are separable. In Pancastikayasara we read "Only in common parlance do we
distinguish darsana and jnana. But in reality there is no separation."[23]
The soul is inseparabl from Upayoga. Horme is an essential characteristic
of the living organisms. It is manifested in the fundamental property
experienced in the incessant adjustments and adventures that make up the
tissue of life and which may be called drive or felt tendency towards an
end.[24] Animal life is not merely permeated by physical and chemical
processes it is more than that. Even the simplest animal is autonomous.
The soul is simple
and without parts. It is formless as the soul is immaterial it has no
form. This quality has been mentioned in other systeins also. The Jaina
thinker were against the Buddhist idea of the soul as a cluster of khandas.
Buddists do not refer to the permanent soul. It is a composite of mental
states called khandas. In moder Western thought, Hume says, "When I enter
most intimating into what I call myself, I always stumble upon some
percetion or other of heat or cold, light, or shade, love or hatred pain
or pleasure. I never catch myself any time without perception, and never
can observe anything but the perception,"[25] Hoffding stated that the ego
has been looked out for in vain as something absolutely simple. The nature
of the ego is manifested in the combination of sensation, ideas and
feelings. But Herbart maintains that the soul is a simple being not only
without parts but also without qualitativ multiplicity. Modern Psychology
has emphasized substan-tiality, simplicity, persistence and consciousness
as the attributes of the soul. Descartes has said, "I am the thing that
thinks, that is to say who doubts, who affirms....who loves, who hates and
feels...," He designates this thing as substance.[26]
Hamilton advocated
the four characteristics with the greatest explicitness. Other prominent
names are those of Porter, Calkins, Angell and Aveling.[27]
From the
phenomenal point of view, jiva is also described as possessing four pranas.
They are sense (indriya), energy (bala), life (ayus) and respiration (ana).
The Pancastikayasara gives the same description. The idea of prana is
found in Indian and Western thought. In the Old Testament (Genesis. Book
I) we read, "The Lord God breathed into the nostril the breath of life and
man became a living soul." In the primitive minds we find the conception
that the wind gave men life. When it ceases to blow, men die. In the
Navaho legend there is a description of the life force according to which
we see the trace of the wind in the skin at the tips of fingers. Pranas
refer to psychophysical factors of the organism. The jiva assumes the
bodily powers when it takes new forms in each new birth. Whatever thing
manifests in the four pranas lives and is jiva.[28] The four Pranas are
manifest in ten forms. The Indriya expresses itself in five senses. Bala
may refer to the mind, the body and speech. Ayus and Ana are one each.
These pranas in all their details need not be present in all organisms,
because there are organisms with less than five sense organs. But there
must be the four main characteristics. The most perfectly developed souls
have all the ten pranas and the lowest have only
four. This has a great biological and psychological significance.
Comparative psychology points out that in the psychophysical development
of the various animal species at the lower level, the chemical sense which
is affected by chemical reaction is the only sense function; and it later
becomes the separate sense of taste and smell Experimental investigations
carried by Riley and Forell point out that the chemical sense is used by
insects like moths even for mating. Forel has given a topo-chemical
theory for explaining the behavior of bees. As we go higher in the scale
of life, the chemical sense plays little part. In birds, sight and smell
are well developed. In mammals, we find a higher degree of qualitative
discrimination of smell. As we go higher still, we get the variability of
adaptation which may be called intelligence.
In the Brahmanas
and the oldest Upanisads there is a description of the psyche as
consisting of five pranas. They are regarded as factors of the physico-psychological
life. Occasionally, more than five pranas are mentioned. But still the
idea of a permanent self had not shaped itself. In the third Adhyaya of
the Brhadaranyakopanisad Yajnavalkya was asked to explain what happend to
a person after the body has been dissolved, and the parts of the psyche
has been remitted to the fire and wind. He avoids the discussion and
suggests that Karma remains after death.[29] This was a step forward
towards the formation of the permanent self. Brhadaranyakopanisad also
contains a discussion about the constituent parts of the soul. Eight
instead of five have been suggested. Vijnana and retah are mentioned. This
vijnanamayapurusa comes nearer to the conception of the soul, although
personal immortality is not emphasized. In Jainism also, the idea of a
permanent soul possessing pranas must have developed on the same lines.
From the
phenomenal point of view, the soul is the Lord (prabhu), the doer (karta),
enjoyer (bhokta) limited to his body (deahmatra), still incorporeal, and
it is ordinarily found with Karma. Asa potter considers himself as a maker
and enjoyer of the clay pot, so, from the practical point of view, the
mundane soul is said to be the doer of things like constructing house and
the enjoyer of sense objects.[30] As the soul produces impure
thought-activities and as a consequence, the material Karmas, it also
enjoy his thoughts with the help of the material Karmas. Thus, Jiva enjoys
its thought created activity. However, from the noumenal point of view,
Jiva is the doer of suddha bhavas or pure thought (karmas); and from the
phenomenal point of view, it is the doer of pudgala karmas or Karmic
matter.[31] The distinction between the formal cause (nimitta), and
material cause upadana, has been introduced for the description of the
soul. The Jainas say that the soul is the efficient cause of the material
Karmas. The Jiva possesses consciousness, and conciseness manifests
itself in the form of various mental states. These mental states are
responsible for activities which produce material Karmas. It is,
therefore, asserted that Jiva is the agent: of thought-karmas, indirectly
of the Karmic matter. The Pancastikayacara describes the atman as the
agent of its own bhavas. But it is not the agent of Dudgala karmas.[32]
Jainism emphasizes the activity of the Jiva as against the
Samkhya view of the passive udasina purusa. As a consequence of activity,
the Jiva experiences happiness and misery. But Hemicandra says that it is
only from the phenomenal point of view. From the nollmenal point of view,
Jiva has consequences and it enjoys eternal bliss. In the Dravyasamgraha
we read, "niccayanayado cedanabhavam khu adassa". He joys and sorrows that
Jiva experiences are the fruits of dravya-karman Rut Buddhism believe[32]
that the agent never enjoys the fruits of Karma. James Ward giving the
general characterization of the "varied contents of the general self, says
that the self has first of all a) a unique interest and b) a certain in-wardness,
further it is c) an individual that d) percists, e) is active, and finally
it knows itself.[33]
