Jiva

MIND, MATTER AND GOD : JIVA, JADA AND ISVARA
M.M.NINAN
Jainism appears to teach a dualistic cosmology. The cosmos is divided in loka and
aloka – world and not-world, or universe and not-universe. Within loka is every form of
existence. Outside loka is only space (alokākāśa), but soul (= life-consciousness),
matter, time, movement and opposition to movement do not exist there. Within loka, the
universe or manifested cosmos comprising all existing things, there is a lower or hellish
world, a middle world (Madhyaloka) and an upper world where the heavenly or celestial
beings live. The lower world consists of seven “earths” (bhūmi), which are depicted as a
column of horizontal discs with spaces in between, and which become more and more
unpleasant in a downward direction. Within these seven “earths” are seven narakas or
infernal realms, which are further subdivided into a total of 8,400,000 hellish locations.
The Middle World is pictured as a horizontal disc without thickness. On a small part of it
we live at this moment. Literature, paintings and relief sculptures depict mountains,
rivers, lakes, oceans, islands and continents in detail.
Above the higher world is an upper world, which consists of dozens of heavens or
paradises. Above the highest heaven, but of course still within loka, the universe, is
Siddhaloka – the world of the beings who have entirely shed all karmas and will never
return to any lower level of existence within the universe.
Though Jainism expresses its view on the cosmos in a dualistic way, the deeper and
original meaning needs not be dualistic: loka is surrounded by – or exists within – aloka.
Thus loka is that aspect of the infinite which can possibly be understood. Even the Jinas
59