elements—earth, fire, water, wind—and further, bodies and all other
appearances of the world of sense and of the supernatural worlds. The
forms of the appearances are mostly unchangeable. Only the bodies of men
and their age increase or decrease in consequence of the greater or less
influence of sin or merit, during immeasurably long periods,—the
_Avasarpiṇi_ and the _Utsarpiṇi_. Souls are, each by
itself, independent, real existences whose foundation is pure
intelligence, and who possess an impulse to action. In the world they are
always chained to bodies. The reason of this confinement is that they give
themselves up to the stress of activity, to passions, to influences of the
senses and objects of the mind, or attach themselves to a false belief.
The deeds which they perform in the bodies are _Karman_, merit and
sin. This drives them—when one body has passed away, according to the
conditions of its existence—into another, whose quality depends on the
character of the _Karman_, and will be determined especially by the
last thoughts springing from it before death. Virtue leads to the heavens
of the gods or to birth among men in pure and noble races. Sin consigns
the souls to the lower regions, in the bodies of animals, in plants, even
into masses of lifeless matter. For—according to the Jaina
doctrine—souls exist not only in organic structures, but also in
apparently dead masses, in stones, in lumps of earth, in drops of water,
in fire and in wind. Through union with bodies the nature of the soul is
affected. In the mass of matter the light of its intelligence is
completely concealed; it loses consciousness, is immovable, and large or
small, according to the dimensions of its abode. In organic structures it
is always conscious; it depends however, on the nature of the same,
whether it is movable or immovable and possessed of five, four, three,
two, or one organ of sense.

The bondage of souls, if they inhabit a human body, can be abolished by