Kundakunda and his commentators refute what they call the one-sided view found in Sāṃkhya philosophy, an early philosophical school of Hinduism that posits a radical difference between the soul as non-material, inactive, and unchanging and a material world that is constantly in flux. While in Sāṃkhya, the soul (puruṣa) is always inactive, Kundakunda promotes a theory of radical responsibility. The soul ceases to be the agent of its cognitive and embodied states only when it ceases to identify with them, becoming solely the knower. As such, for Amṛtacandra, agency is a product of self-alienation. It stems from delusion (moha), both as a form of ignorance and karmic accretion, resultant from the mistaken identification with another’s states. By learning to exert control over these states, however, the soul gradually distinguishes between alien states and its own true nature. This process culminates in the realization of the soul’s only stable emotion (sthāyi-bhāva)—knowledge—which dissolves all distinctions and leads to the experience of one’s true self.
Amṛtacandra defines agency, or the state of acting—which is mutually exclusive with the state of knowing—as karma-rāga, the karmic state of attachment, which can be also understood as an attachment to action. This attachment stands for an ignorant inclination (abodhamayam adhyavasāyam) that arises from false views (mithyā-dṛṣṭi). This ignorant inclination leads a person to mistakenly believe they are responsible for the states of others and that others are responsible for their own states, thinking “I kill others” (hiṃsāmi) and “others kill me” (hiṃsijjāmi ya parehiṃ sattehiṃ). The soul’s identification with these inclinations corresponds to the conventional viewpoint (Pkt. vavahārassa), which makes the person appear as an agent of material states: “From the conventional viewpoint, the soul produces (Pkt. karedi) material karma of all kinds, and the soul also experiences (Pkt. veyai) material karma in a variety of ways.” Amṛtacandra explains that volitional inclination is external to the soul and results in bondage. For instance, a monk who is free from attachment (rāga) to action and thus devoid of volitional inclination does not accrue karmic bondage, even if they accidentally commit a crime, such as mistakenly killing a living being: “A person who is without attachment (arato) does not get bound.” The emotional state of attachment or desire does not only define the nature of action but is part of the action itself, since acting is explained through the karmic state of rāga. Without emotional states, an action—even one as serious as killing—does not involve the presence of an agent.
Without false identification, the soul no longer acts in the world: “this person, having become the knower, becomes free from agency and shines forth” (jñānī-bhūya tadā sa eṣa lasitaḥ kartṛtva-ṣūnyaḥ pumān). In this context, the agency of the soul collapses, as the agent and the object merge into a state of unity and oneness. The soul cannot be considered an agent of knowledge because the soul itself is knowledge; thus, there are no causal relations between the two. Amṛtacandra states that when duality is eliminated, there is no application of analytical frameworks and perspectives: “The glory of perspectives (nayas) does not rise, proof (pramāṇa) is setting down; we don’t know where the discus of analytic techniques (nikṣepas) goes. What more can we say? When the soul becomes the all-encompassing radiance, it experiences itself, and duality does not appear.” Duality vanishes in the experiences described by Amṛtacandra, who understands the soul’s highest state as one in which it merges within itself.
The Jain philosophers Kundakunda (second half of the first millennium) and Amṛtacandra (eleventh century) assert that an individual becomes an agent and experiencer of a cognitive or embodied state through temporary identification with that state. This paper explores how such identification, while entangling the soul in the cycle of rebirth, creates a relationship of product and producer (bhāva-bhāvaka) between karma, as the action, and the soul, as the agent. This framework imbues the soul with agency over its karmic states, which Kundakunda illustrates using the example of sexual desire: although attraction is part of karma, this does not imply a situation in which one karma desires another karma (kammaṃ ceva hi kammaṃ ahilasai). While karma is responsible for sexual desire, the individual retains control over their urges. By focusing on the tension between karma and agency, this paper examines how Kundakunda and Amṛtacandra explore the relationship between bondage and freedom.