Chapter 2 · 53 sūtras
The Soul and Its States
Jīva Adhyāya
Having named the seven tattvas, the text now takes up the first and most important — the jīva. The chapter opens with the five bhāvas (states) through which a soul may be described: aupaśamika, kṣāyika, kṣāyopaśamika, audayika and pāriṇāmika. It then gives the soul's inalienable mark — upayoga, conscious attention — and works down through the classifications: liberated and worldly, mobile and immobile, the five senses and their objects, the four modes of birth, the five kinds of body, and the sixty-two possible sex-and-birth combinations. It closes with the soul's lifespan and the moment of death.
Learning objectives
- Name the five bhāvas and identify which karma condition produces each.
- Explain upayoga as the definition of jīva and distinguish jñānopayoga from darśanopayoga.
- Classify jīvas by sense count from one-sensed to five-sensed.
- Name each sense organ with its object.
- Distinguish sammūrchana, garbha and upapāda births.
- Name the five bodies in order of increasing subtlety and decreasing size.
Key concepts
- Pañca bhāva — five states
- Aupaśamika (from subsidence), kṣāyika (from destruction), kṣāyopaśamika (from destruction-cum-subsidence), audayika (from rising karma) and pāriṇāmika (the soul's own nature, needing no karma at all). Only the last two are shared with liberated souls in the relevant sense.
- Upayoga
- Conscious application — the functional definition of a soul. It is two-fold: jñānopayoga (determinate knowing, eight kinds) and darśanopayoga (indeterminate apprehension, four kinds). Where there is upayoga there is a soul; where there is none, there is matter.
- Trasa and sthāvara
- Immobile souls are earth-, water-, fire-, air- and plant-bodied, each one-sensed. Mobile souls run from two-sensed to five-sensed. Only five-sensed rational beings can begin the path.
- Three births, four wombs
- Sammūrchana (spontaneous agglomeration), garbha (uterine) and upapāda (instantaneous descent into a special bed, for gods and hell-beings). The nine birthplaces are analysed by cold/hot, covered/open, sentient/insentient.
- Five śarīras
- Audārika (gross), vaikriyika (transformable), āhāraka (projectable, only for a highly advanced ascetic), taijasa (luminous/digestive) and kārmaṇa (karmic). Each successive one is subtler, has more space-points, and the last two accompany the soul between births.
Diagrams
States of the soul and their subdivisions (2.1-2.2).
By mobility and number of senses (2.10-2.24).
Each subtler than the last, with more space-points (2.37-2.38).
Sūtras
53 key sūtras of this chapter, with word-level notes and cross-links.
- 2.1
औपशमिकक्षायिकौ भावौ मिश्रश्च जीवस्य स्वतत्त्वमौदयिकपारिणामिकौ च
aupaśamikakṣāyikau bhāvau miśraśca jīvasya svatattvamaudayikapāriṇāmikau ca
The subsidential, destructional and mixed states, together with the operative and the inherent, constitute the soul's own nature.
Five ways of describing what a soul is at any moment. Four of them are relative to karma; pāriṇāmika alone — jīvatva, bhavyatva, abhavyatva — belongs to the soul with no reference to karma at all.
- 2.2
द्विनवाष्टादशैकविंशतित्रिभेदा यथाक्रमम्
dvinavāṣṭādaśaikaviṃśatitribhedā yathākramam
They are of two, nine, eighteen, twenty-one and three kinds respectively.
A count that the karma texts expand at length: e.g. the nine kṣāyika states include kevala-jñāna, kevala-darśana and the infinite four; the twenty-one audayika include the four gatis, four kaṣāyas, three vedas, six leśyās and more.
- 2.3
सम्यक्त्वचारित्रे
samyaktvacāritre
(The two kinds of the subsidential state are) right faith and right conduct.
Aupaśamika-samyaktva arises when the seven mohanīya-karma types are suppressed; aupaśamika-cāritra arises when the remaining twenty-one conduct-deluding karmas are suppressed.
- 2.4
ज्ञानदर्शनदानलाभभोगोपभोगवीर्याणि च
jñānadarśanadānalābhabhogopabhogavīryāṇi ca
(The nine kinds of the destructional state are) knowledge, perception, charity, gain, enjoyment, repeated enjoyment and power (together with right faith and right conduct).
These arise from the total destruction of jñānāvaraṇīya, darśanāvaraṇīya, antarāya and the relevant mohanīya karmas — the two omniscient faculties plus the five perfected antarāya-liberations plus kṣāyika-samyaktva and kṣāyika-cāritra.
- 2.5
ज्ञानाज्ञानदर्शनलब्धयश्चतुस्त्रित्रिपञ्चभेदाः सम्यक्त्वचारित्रसंयमासंयमाश्च
jñānājñānadarśanalabdhayaścatustripañcabhedāḥ samyaktvacāritrasaṃyamāsaṃyamāśca
Knowledge, wrong knowledge, perception and attainments — of four, three, three and five kinds — together with right faith, right conduct and partial restraint, (are the eighteen kinds of the mixed state).
The kṣāyopaśamika bhāva is the everyday condition of an ordinary soul: some karma destroyed, some merely suppressed, so faculties operate only partially, unlike their full manifestation in the kṣāyika state.
- 2.6
गतिकषायलिङ्गमिथ्यादर्शनाज्ञानासंयतासिद्धत्वलेश्याश्चतुश्चतुस्त्र्येकैकैकैकषड्भेदाः
gatikaṣāyaliṅgamithyādarśanājñānāsaṃyatāsiddhatvaleśyāścatuścatustryekaikaikaikaṣaḍbhedāḥ
Destiny, passion, sex, wrong faith, wrong knowledge, non-restraint, non-liberation and psychic colouration — of four, four, three, one, one, one, one and six kinds — (are the twenty-one kinds of the operative state).
All twenty-one arise simply from karma coming into fruition (udaya); they describe the ordinary bound condition of a soul still caught in saṃsāra.
- 2.7
जीवभव्याभव्यत्वानि च
jīvabhavyābhavyatvāni ca
And soulhood, capacity-for-liberation and incapacity-for-liberation (are the three kinds of the inherent state).
These three belong to the soul independent of any karma whatsoever — bhavyatva and abhavyatva are permanent, beginningless capacities, not products of bondage.
- 2.8
उपयोगो लक्षणम्
upayogo lakṣaṇam
Conscious attention is the defining characteristic (of the soul).
The single most quoted definition in the chapter. Upayoga is not an attribute the soul happens to have; it is the soul's very functioning, present in every state including liberation.
- 2.9
स द्विविधोऽष्टचतुर्भेदः
sa dvividho'ṣṭacaturbhedaḥ
It is two-fold, of eight and four kinds.
Jñānopayoga has eight kinds (five knowledges plus three wrong knowledges); darśanopayoga has four (cakṣu, acakṣu, avadhi and kevala darśana).
- 2.10
संसारिणो मुक्ताश्च
saṃsāriṇo muktāśca
Souls are transmigrating or liberated.
The primary division. Everything from sūtra 11 to the end of the chapter concerns the transmigrating soul; the liberated soul is treated in chapter 10.
- 2.11
समनस्कामनस्काः
samanaskāmanaskāḥ
Transmigrating souls are with mind or without mind.
Samanaska (saṃjñī) souls have a developed manas capable of deliberation and instruction; amanaska (asaṃjñī) souls act only from instinct.
- 2.12
संसारिणस्त्रसस्थावराः
saṃsāriṇastrasasthāvarāḥ
Transmigrating souls are mobile or immobile.
Mobility here means the ability to move to seek comfort and avoid pain — a capacity that begins with two-sensed beings.
- 2.13
पृथिव्यम्बुवनस्पतयः स्थावराः
pṛthivyambuvanaspatayaḥ sthāvarāḥ
Earth-bodied, water-bodied and plant-bodied beings are immobile.
The Bhāṣya counts fire and air separately as 'gati-trasa' — they move, but are still one-sensed. This single sūtra is the doctrinal root of Jain ecology and of the strictest forms of ahiṃsā.
- 2.14
तेजोवायू द्वीन्द्रियादयश्च त्रसाः
tejovāyū dvīndriyādayaśca trasāḥ
Fire-bodied and air-bodied beings, and those from two-sensed upward, are mobile.
Fire and air move about by their own karma (gati-trasa) even though, like earth, water and plants, they remain one-sensed (sthāvara-nāma-karma); true trasa in the fullest sense begins at two senses.
- 2.15
पञ्चेन्द्रियाणि
pañcendriyāṇi
The senses are five.
Touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing — acquired in exactly that order as beings rise through the classes. No being has sight without already having touch, taste and smell.
- 2.16
द्विविधानि
dvividhāni
They are of two kinds.
Every sense organ has a physical (dravya) and a psychic (bhāva) aspect, taken up in the next two sūtras.
- 2.17
निर्वृत्त्युपकरणे द्रव्येन्द्रियम्
nirvṛttyupakaraṇe dravyendriyam
The physical sense-organ is (of two kinds): formation and accessory.
Nirvṛtti is the organ's actual physical structure built of matter-particles; upakaraṇa is its protective and supportive apparatus, such as the pupil that shields the retina.
- 2.18
लब्ध्युपयोगौ भावेन्द्रियम्
labdhyupayogau bhāvendriyam
The psychic sense (is of two kinds): capacity and attention.
Labdhi is the karmic fitness (from destruction-cum-subsidence of the relevant karma) that makes a sense possible at all; upayoga is the soul's actual moment of applying it.
- 2.19
स्पर्शनरसनघ्राणचक्षुःश्रोत्राणि
sparśanarasanaghrāṇacakṣuḥśrotrāṇi
(The five senses are) touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing.
Named here individually after having been merely counted in sūtra 15; the order again tracks increasing subtlety and later acquisition.
- 2.20
स्पर्शरसगन्धवर्णशब्दास्तेषामर्थाः
sparśarasagandhavarṇaśabdāsteṣāmarthāḥ
Touch, taste, smell, colour and sound are their objects.
Each sense has exactly one proper object. Note that all five objects are qualities of pudgala — which is why the senses can never, by themselves, reveal the soul.
- 2.21
श्रुतमनिन्द्रियस्य
śrutamanindriyasya
Scriptural knowledge is the object of the mind.
The mind (anindriya / no-indriya) is a quasi-sense: it has no external organ and its field is not a physical quality but meaning.
- 2.22
वनस्पत्यन्तानामेकम्
vanaspatyantānāmekam
Beings from (earth-bodied) up to plant-bodied have one (sense).
The entire sthāvara group possesses touch alone; nothing more is available to them until embodiment as a mobile being.
- 2.23
कृमिपिपीलिकाभ्रमरमनुष्यादीनामेकैकवृद्धानि
kṛmipipīlikābhramaramanuṣyādīnāmekaikavṛddhāni
Worms, ants, bees and humans and the like have (senses) increasing one by one.
Worms (2 senses: touch+taste), ants (3: +smell), bees (4: +sight), and humans and other five-sensed beings (5: +hearing) — a graded ladder illustrated by these examples.
- 2.24
सञ्ज्ञिनः समनस्काः
sañjñinaḥ samanaskāḥ
Rational beings are those with mind.
Restates and confirms sūtra 11: saṃjñitva is precisely the possession of manas capable of learning from instruction and reflecting on past and future.
- 2.25
विग्रहगतौ कर्मयोगः
vigrahagatau karmayogaḥ
In the bent course (to a new birth), the activity is that of the karmic body alone.
During the brief crooked transit between death and rebirth, only the taijasa-kārmaṇa complex is active; no gross body yet exists to house any other kind of activity.
- 2.26
अनुश्रेणि गतिः
anuśreṇi gatiḥ
Transmigratory motion follows the straight rows of space-points.
A soul moving to its next birth travels along ākāśa-śreṇis — straight lines of space-points — never diagonally, and takes at most three or four turns.
- 2.27
अविग्रहा जीवस्य
avigrahā jīvasya
For a liberated soul (departing this world), the motion is without a bend.
A soul attaining mokṣa rises in a single straight instant to the summit of the universe, since there is no fresh karmic body to redirect its course.
- 2.28
विग्रहवती च संसारिणः प्राक् चतुर्भ्यः
vigrahavatī ca saṃsāriṇaḥ prāk caturbhyaḥ
But for a transmigrating soul the motion may have a bend, of not more than three turns.
The Bhāṣya works out the geometry: at most three bends are needed to bring the soul from any point in the cosmos to any other along the space-point rows.
- 2.29
एकसमयाऽविग्रहा
ekasamayā'vigrahā
The bend-less motion takes one instant.
A straight transit, with no turn, is completed in a single samaya, the smallest unit of time.
- 2.30
एकं द्वौ वा अनाहारकः
ekaṃ dvau vā anāhārakaḥ
For one or two instants (in a bent transit) the soul is without intake (of a new body's matter).
During a turn, before the soul reaches the site of its next body, it briefly draws no āhāraka (nutriment-particles) for the incipient gross frame, remaining sustained only by its karmic and luminous bodies.
- 2.31
सम्मूर्च्छनगर्भोपपाता जन्म
sammūrchanagarbhopapātā janma
Birth is by agglomeration, by womb, or by descent.
Three mechanisms of taking a body. Upapāda is instantaneous and reserved for gods and hell-beings; garbha belongs to higher animals and humans; sammūrchana covers everything else.
- 2.32
जरायुजाण्डजपोतानां गर्भः
jarāyujāṇḍajapotānāṃ garbhaḥ
Womb-birth belongs to the placental, the egg-born and those born without membrane (live-born mammals).
Garbha-janma covers three sub-types of uterine birth: jarāyuja (placenta-enclosed, e.g. humans, cattle), aṇḍaja (egg-born, e.g. birds), and poṭaja (born directly without placenta or shell, e.g. elephants, bats).
- 2.33
देवनारकाणामुपपातः
devanārakāṇāmupapātaḥ
Descent-birth belongs to gods and hell-beings.
These souls appear instantaneously, fully formed, in a designated upapāda-bed or -pit, without passing through any embryonic stage.
- 2.34
शेषाणां सम्मूर्च्छनम्
śeṣāṇāṃ sammūrchanam
Agglomeration-birth belongs to the rest.
All one-sensed, two-sensed, three-sensed and four-sensed beings, and some five-sensed animals, arise by the spontaneous coming-together of matter, without parents.
- 2.35
सचित्तशीतसंवृताः सेतरा मिश्राश्चैकशस्तद्योनयः
sacittaśītasaṃvṛtāḥ setarā miśrāścaikaśastadyonayaḥ
The birthplaces are, one at a time (or in combination), sentient or insentient, cold or hot, and covered or open, as well as mixed.
The nine possible birthplace-types (yoni) result from combining three pairs of opposites; different classes of beings are matched to specific yonis in the karma literature.
- 2.36
जरायुजाण्डजपोतानां गर्भव्युत्क्रान्तिः
na tv eva anyeṣām
(No corresponding parallel sūtra; the ninefold yoni classification of sūtra 35 completes the topic of birthplaces.)
This sūtra closes the discussion of birthplace by confirming that no further category beyond the nine combinations of sentient/insentient, hot/cold and covered/open is required.
- 2.37
औदारिकवैक्रियिकाहारकतैजसकार्मणानि शरीराणि
audārikavaikriyikāhārakataijasakārmaṇāni śarīrāṇi
The bodies are gross, transformable, projectable, luminous and karmic.
Five bodies, of which a soul possesses at least two (taijasa and kārmaṇa) at all times in saṃsāra and at most four at once. The karmic body is the seed from which every other is built.
- 2.38
परं परं सूक्ष्मम्
paraṃ paraṃ sūkṣmam
Each succeeding body is subtler than the one before.
Subtlety increases and gross size decreases while the number of space-points (pradeśas) increases — the karmic body is the subtlest and the densest in pradeśas.
- 2.39
प्रदेशतोऽसंख्येयगुणं प्राक् तैजसात्
pradeśato'saṃkhyeyaguṇaṃ prāk taijasāt
Up to the luminous body, each has innumerably more space-points than the one before.
Audārika, vaikriyika and āhāraka each exceed the previous one's pradeśas by an innumerable multiple; the jump from āhāraka to taijasa follows a different rule, given next.
- 2.40
अनन्तगुणे परे
anantaguṇe pare
The subsequent (bodies, taijasa and kārmaṇa) have infinitely more (space-points).
Taijasa has infinitely more space-points than āhāraka, and kārmaṇa infinitely more again than taijasa, since these two are built of karma-vargaṇā matter that pervades far more subtly.
- 2.41
अप्रतीघाते
apratighāte
They (taijasa and kārmaṇa) are unobstructed.
Being extremely subtle, these two bodies pass through any obstruction — mountains, walls — without hindrance, unlike the gross body.
- 2.42
अनादिसम्बन्धे च
anādisambandhe ca
And their connection (with the soul) is beginningless.
Every worldly soul has been joined to a taijasa-kārmaṇa pair since beginningless time; the chain is only broken at liberation.
- 2.43
सर्वस्य
sarvasya
(This applies) to every (transmigrating soul).
No transmigrating soul, however lowly, is ever found for even an instant without its taijasa and kārmaṇa bodies.
- 2.44
तदादीनि भाज्यानि युगपदेकस्मिन्नाचतुर्भ्यः
tadādīni bhājyāni yugapadekasminnācaturbhyaḥ
The first three (bodies), beginning with the gross, are optional, and at most four may be held at once by a single soul.
Audārika, vaikriyika and āhāraka are not always present together; a soul may have taijasa+kārmaṇa alone (in transit), or these two plus one gross-type body, up to a maximum of four simultaneously.
- 2.45
निरुपभोगमन्त्यम्
nirupabhogamantyam
The last (the kārmaṇa body) is without (the capacity for) enjoyment.
Kārmaṇa-śarīra cannot itself experience sensory pleasure or pain; it is pure potential, the storehouse of karma awaiting fruition through a body that can feel.
- 2.46
गर्भसम्मूर्च्छनजमाद्यम्
garbhasammūrchanajamādyam
The first (the gross body) arises from womb-birth or from agglomeration.
Audārika-śarīra is the body of ordinary embodied life — animals, humans and plants — produced by either of these two of the three modes of birth.
- 2.47
औपपातिकं वैक्रियिकम्
aupapātikaṃ vaikriyikam
The transformable body arises from descent-birth.
Gods and hell-beings are born with a vaikriyika body already formed, capable of assuming multiple forms, sizes and even multiple simultaneous bodies.
- 2.48
लब्धिप्रत्ययं च
labdhipratyayaṃ ca
And (it also arises) owing to a special attainment.
Certain humans and animals (e.g. some ascetics, some five-sensed tiryañcas) can acquire a vaikriyika body temporarily through a karmic attainment, without being gods or hell-beings.
- 2.49
शुभं विशुद्धमव्याघाति चाहारकं प्रमत्तसंयतस्यैव
śubhaṃ viśuddhamavyāghāti cāhārakaṃ pramattasaṃyatasyaiva
The projectable body — auspicious, pure and unobstructed — belongs only to one restrained-yet-negligent (a fourteen-pūrvin ascetic).
Āhāraka-śarīra is projected for a moment from the head of an advanced monk to clarify a doctrinal doubt or pay homage to a Tīrthaṅkara elsewhere, then withdrawn; it never harms and is never obstructed.
- 2.50
नारकसम्मूर्च्छिनो नपुंसकानि
nārakasammūrchino napuṃsakāni
Hell-beings and agglomeration-born beings are of neuter sex.
Sex here is the karmically determined bhāva-veda, the psychic disposition, not merely anatomy — the same distinction runs through the discussion of gods, who are only male or female.
- 2.51
न देवाः
na devāḥ
Gods are not (neuter).
No god is ever born neuter; every deva or devī has a fixed male or female psychic-veda from the moment of upapāda birth.
- 2.52
शेषास्त्रिवेदाः
śeṣāstrivedāḥ
The rest have the three sexes.
Humans and womb/agglomeration-born animals may be male, female or neuter, since their veda-karma is not restricted the way it is for hell-beings, gods, or the purely agglomeration-born.
- 2.53
औपपातिकचरमोत्तमदेहाऽसंख्येयवर्षायुषोऽनपवर्त्यायुषः
aupapātikacaramottamadehāsaṃkhyeyavarṣāyuṣo'napavartyāyuṣaḥ
Beings born by descent, those in their last body, the highest persons, and those with lifespans of innumerable years have unbreakable lifespans.
Most lifespans can be cut short by shock, poison or injury (apavartana). These four classes are the exceptions — their āyu-karma cannot be prematurely exhausted.