The Doctrine of the Jainas, Described after the Old Sources c8.218

c8.218

§ 92. *The Reincarnation.* For want of materiality the soul as such has no gravity, and it is owing to its being affected with Karman only that it stays with in the chain of existence, the Saṃsāra. As soon as it is released from it, it will rush to reach the spacially highest region it is able to gain (§ 187). But "just as the meshes of a net closely following each other by consequently forming in a row without any interval will act up on the next mesh by their gravity, their load, their full weight and their density, thus in every soul in many thousands of reincarnations many thousands of lives by their gravity, their load, their full weight and their density act on their subsequent lives”¹ (Viy. 214 a). But these figures still keep within a modest frame; other texts give only the state of affairs possible with regard to the eternity of the world, its contents and its laws. As a goat pen is filled up with the excrements of the goats, so in every unit (*paramāṇupoggala-mette vi paese*) of the world an incarnated soul has appeared and expired (*jāe va mae va*), so Viy. 579 a puts it in popular language, by continuing (580 a) that, up from times eternal, as has to be added analogously, a soul has been incarnated more than once or endlessly often in any kind of the beings, and, moreover (581 a), has been related by kinship, sovereignty or servitude with all souls more than once or endlessly often. All beings (*pāṇā*, etc.) have lived as parts of a lotus (§ 94) or as other plants more than once already or endlessly often (Viy. 511 b, 513 b). Reincarnation is commonly called *uvavāya*² (hence the name of Uvavāiya of the 2nd Uvanga), in the title of Pannav. 6 vakkanti. This word covers *uvavāya* and *uvvaṭṭaṇā*, the latter signifying the rising to a spacially higher stage. Sinking, however, is called *cayaṇa* (Ṭhāṇ. 66 a).