Jiva
Jīva (IAST)Translation: "The Individual Soul"
A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy
Sanskrit: जीव
Transliteration: Jīva
Translation: "individual soul; life; embodied self; living entity (from the verb root jīv = “to live”)”
Definition:- According to Jainism, the individual soul is characterized by consciousness, life, immateriality, and extension in space. Consciousness is its characteristic mark and consists in knowledge, insight, bliss, and power. The size of the individual (soul) is the same as that of the body and that it occupies; expanding and contracting as the case may necessitate. It is held that there is a plurality of individuals. They are of two basic kinds; stationary and mobile.
- According to Buddhism, there is no individual (soul) apart from a cluster of factors. The individual is a mere name for a complex of changing constituents.
- According to Nyāya, it is a non-composite, part-less, pervasive, eternal substance. There is an infinite number of individual souls.
- According to Vaiśeṣika, it is an eternal, imperceptible, all-pervading, spiritual substance. There is an infinite number of individual souls.
- According to Sāṅkhya, Puruṣa is an eternal, immutable, conscious entity. It is non-active and has neither birth nor death. What is subject to experience and empirical changes is the phenomenal self which is a blend of Puruṣa and mind. There is an infinite number of individual souls.
- According to Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, individual souls are real, eternal, unborn, spiritual, have knowledge, and are of the nature of knowledge. They are atomic in size and infinite in number. They are an inseparable part of God and dependent thereupon. They are of three types: those eternally free (Nitya), those liberated (Mukta), and those bound (Baddha). The individual soul as knowledge does not change, but bound soul’s knowledge changes. The soul’s knowledge is eternal and in the state of liberation is all-knowing, but on account of empirical limitations, this knowledge is diminished. The souls are both agent and enjoyer. They are a part or mode of God. Their relation is one of inseparability, with the individual soul related to and dependent upon God.
- According to Dvaita Vedānta, individual souls are atomic in size and infinite in number. They are eternal and no two are alike. They are similar to God (Brahman) in kind, but not in degree. They are active agents dependent upon God’s will. They are of three grades: the ever free (Nitya), those having attained freedom (Mukta), and those bound (Baddha). Among the liberated souls, there is an intrinsic gradation, and among the bound souls, there are three types: those fit for release (Mukti-Yogya), those eternally within the cycle of birth and death (Niyta-Saṃsārin), and those fit only for hell (Tamo-Yogya).
- According to Advaita Vedānta, it is a blend of the Self and not-Self with a wrong identification of each of the other. It is a complex entity consisting of the mind-body organism. It is a complex of the substrate intelligence plus the subtle body plus a reflection of consciousness therein. It is consciousness, inseparably qualified by the internal organs. It is a reflection of the consciousness (Cid-Ābhāsa) in impure Sattva-predominant ignorance. It is the phenomenal, empirical ego. Intrinsically, individuals are one, but phenomenally, they are many; they are held to be all-pervading in size.
- According to Vīra Śaivism, individual souls are in three stages of spiritual maturity: Vīra, Puruṣa, and Aṅga. They are a part of Lord Śiva, eternal and essentially pure and perfect. They are also distinct from Śiva in that, though they share his essence, they do not possess his attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, etc. Their powers of knowledge and action are limited due to impurities. Thus, they are both identical and different from Lord Śiva. This relation is called difference-cum-nondifference (Bhedā-Bheda).
- According to Śaiva Siddhānta, individual souls are infinite in number, all-pervasive, and omniscient by nature, though veiled by three impurities (Mala). They are dependent upon God. They are of three types: those completely liberated (Para-Mukta), those liberated while living (Jīvan-Mukta), those craving power (Adhikāra-Mukta). Individual souls are also of three classes: those subject to the three Malas (Sakala), those subject only to Āṇava- and Karma-Malas (Pralayākala), and those subject only to Āṇava-Mala (Vijñānākala). Individual souls are related to Lord Śiva as the body is related to the individual soul. That is, they are different, but they are not separate. In nature, they are similar but in essence, as an entity, they are different. Even in release this distinctiveness remains.
- According to Kashmir Śaivism, individual souls are called bound (Paśu) due to limitations caused by impurities. Individual souls are eternal, real, identical with Lord Śiva, and essentially unlimited, all-pervading, ever-conscious luminosity. Liberation comes by recognition of their real nature as being identical with Śiva. They are of four types: bound (Paśu), peaceful (Śanta), conceited and devoid of knowledge (Pralaya-Kevalin), and liberated (Vijñāna-Kevalin). The individual soul passes through the five elements (Tattva) of the pure creation in a reverse order on its way to liberation. These stages are called Mantra, Mantreśa, Mantra-Meheśa, Śaktija, and Śambhava. Liberation comes when the soul remembers its identity with Lord Śiva.
- According to Śivādvaita, individuals are a part of God (Brahman), eternal, atomic in size, infinite in number, dependent, and bound by their impurities (Mala), though in essence, they are pure and perfect. Liberation is being similar to, but not identical with, Lord Śiva. It is the realization of one’s own essential nature. This is achieved through contemplation of Lord Śiva.
- According to Mīmāṃsā, the individual soul is one of the substances. It is eternal and distinct from the mind-body complex. It is an agent of action and the enjoyer of the fruits thereof. There is a plurality of individual souls.
- According to the Yoga school, the individual soul is a changeless, eternal, omnipresent, conscious entity. It is entirely passive. Liberation comes when the individual soul roots out ignorance and stills the modifications of the mind.
- The word Jīva is derived from the root Jīv which means “to continue breathing.” Other names for it include Bhotkā (experient) and Kartā (agent). It is also described as Puruṣa, which is explained as Puriśaya or “what lies in the citadel of the body.”
Glossary to the Record of Yoga
Jīva — “the living entity”; the soul, the individual Puruṣa, “a spirit and self, superior to Nature” which “consents to her acts, reflects her moods”, but “is itself a living reflection or a soul-form or a self-creation of the Spirit universal and transcendent”, an expression of the “principle of multiplicity in the spiritual being of the one divine Existence”; the Jīva as a partial manifestation of the Īśvara, participating in all his powers as “witness, giver of the sanction, upholder, knower, lord”, is also “the meeting-place of the play of the dual aspect of the Divine, Prakṛti and Puruṣa, and in the higher spiritual consciousness he becomes simultaneously one with both these aspects, and there he takes up and combines all the divine relations created by their interaction.”
References:
- Grimes, John (1996). A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Defined in English. Albany: State University of New York Press
- Hartz, Richard. Glossary to the Record of Yoga (Sri Aurobindo). Retrieved from http://wiki.auroville.org.in/wiki/Glossary_to_the_Record_of_Yoga
