ways and it is accordingly divided
into eight classes, as we have already noticed. This karma is the
cause of bondage and sorrow. According as good or bad karma
matter sticks to the soul it gets itself coloured respectively as
golden, lotus-pink, white and black, blue and grey and they are
called the _les'yas_. The feelings generated by the accumulation of
the karma-matter are called _bhava-les'ya_ and the actual coloration
of the soul by it is called _dravya-les'ya_. According as any karma
matter has been generated by good, bad, or indifferent actions, it
gives us pleasure, pain, or feeling of indifference. Even the knowledge
that we are constantly getting by perception, inference, etc.,
is but the result of the effect of karmas in accordance with which
the particular kind of veil which was obscuring any particular kind
of knowledge is removed at any time and we have a knowledge
of a corresponding nature. By our own karmas the veils over our
knowledge, feeling, etc., are so removed that we have just that
kind of knowledge and feeling that we deserved to have. All
knowledge, feeling, etc., are thus in one sense generated from
within, the external objects which are ordinarily said to be
generating them all being but mere coexistent external conditions.
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[Footnote 1: The Jains acknowledge five kinds of knowledge: (1) _matijnana_
(ordinary cognition), (2) _s'ruti_ (testimony), (3) _avadhi_ (supernatural
cognition), (4) _mana@hparyaya_ (thought-reading), (5) _kevala-jnana_
(omniscience).]
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After the effect of a particular karma matter (_karma-varga@na_)
is once produced, it is discharged and purged from off the soul.
This process of purging off the karmas is called _nirjara_. If no
new karma matter should accumulate then, the gradual purging
off of the karmas might make the soul free of karma matter, but as
it is, while some karma matter is being purged off, other karma
matter is continually pouring in, and thus the purging and
binding processes continuing simultaneously force the soul to
continue its mundane cycle of existence, transmigration, and rebirth.
After the death of each individual his soul, together with
its karmic body (_karma@nas'arira_), goes in a few moments to the
place of its new birth and there assumes a new body, expanding
or contracting in accordance with the dimensions of the latter.
In the ordinary course karma takes
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