Article: Types of bodies
In Jain belief the soul or self – jīva – travels through the endless cycle of rebirth during which it is born into various bodies, which are classified into types of:
- being or body
- sense-being.
These bodies live in the world space of the Jain universe – loka. The soul’s journey ends when it has reached such a level of spiritual progress that it becomes enlightened and is liberated from the cycle of birth – saṃsāra. For Jains, the purpose of living is to advance spiritually so that one’s soul travels a little nearer to liberation – mokṣa.
Unliberated souls are born into a succession of various bodies in different parts of the Three Worlds that make up world space. There are four states – gatis – into which they can be born. The world into which they are born and the body they have in that birth or lifetime depend on their spiritual condition. This is largely determined by the karma that has become attached to the soul over the course of the previous life and also, to some extent, the karma from previous lives. A soul may therefore be born in a hell in one rebirth and in a heaven in the next – it may not move among the different worlds in a straightforward way, going either all up in succession or all down in succession.
The more advanced a soul’s spirituality, the higher the world into which it is born. However, being born a human being in the Middle World is better than being born a god into one of the heavens of the Upper World. This is because only human beings can reach omniscience – kevala-jñāna – which is a late, necessary stage on the way to liberation, and human beings can live only in the Middle World.
Four types of beings
The unliberated, imperfect soul is reborn in the four types of conditions in each of the three worlds throughout its time in the cycle of rebirth – saṃsāra. The soul can be born in one of the following conditions – gatis:
- a human being – manuṣya-gati
- a heavenly being, living in the heavens – deva-gati
- an infernal being, living in the hells – nāraka-gati
- an animal or plant – tiryag-gati.
The cause of the soul’s birth in a certain condition is its karma. Activities and thoughts during a lifetime create karmas, which may be positive or negative. In summary, positive karmas arise from ‘good’ conduct while negative karmas are produced by ‘bad’ activities. Behaviour, including thoughts, is judged by the principles laid down in the Jain scriptures.
Positive karmas may result in a birth as a god or human being. Negative karmas lead to birth as an animal or even an insect, plant or creature in hell. A soul reborn in the two worse gatis finds it more difficult to follow Jain teachings and progress spiritually.
However, even a soul born as a deity is trapped within the cycle of births. The best condition to be born into is that of a human, because it is the only one in which the soul can be liberated from the cycle, which usually lasts thousands of lifetimes.
Sense-beings
In Jain cosmology all living beings are also classified into groups according to their number of sense-organs, from one to five. The following hierarchy is a summary of the extremely detailed sub-classifications and lists found in Jain writings.
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Number of senses |
Sense |
Examples |
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1 |
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2 |
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3 |
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4 |
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5 |
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The more advanced a soul’s spirituality the more senses its body has in this birth. However, acting in such a way that karma becomes stuck to the soul means that in the next life the soul is likely to be born in a lower type of body, with fewer senses. The soul’s possibility of spiritual progress is more limited in such a condition – gati.
