Jiva | October 12, 2004

Jiva is Sanskrit and means life or life-principle. It is a Jaina term for the immaterial soul of each sentient being; one of two basic categories into which the Jainas place all existing things, the other being ajiva, that which is existent but not sentient or conscious. The human existence is the result of a Jiva becoming associated with, or bound up in ajiva or particular matter by the means of Karma, which the Jainas interpret as a special, subtle form of matter which clings as it were to the Jiva. The accumulated Karma causes the Jiva to be limited to a particular physical incarnation.