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personality which is free and eternal. It is a knower, a free agent and is joyful. The ātman that subjects itself to the evils of Saṁsāra or the bondage of karma is called baddha-jīva. It somehow, owing to avidyā or ancient ignorance which cannot be explained, mistakes itself for the body made of prakṛti and suffers from the series of births and deaths. It is like the prince who exiles himself from his father's throne and joins the wild hunters in the forest, marries a hunter girl, begets children by her and thus gets immersed in savage life. The ātman somehow deserts its divine home, enters into the body made of acit, wallows in sense life and is caught up in the wheel of births and deaths. Why or how it lapses from the divine heritage and suffers from avidyā, kāma and karma, is a mystery. But the jīva alone is responsible for the evils and ills of worldliness and not any outside agency. Avidyā makes it identify itself with prakṛti and its guṇas; kāma makes it seek the pleasures of the senses and suffer from the pains of animal life and karma subjects it to the endless series of births and deaths. But the Jīva does not suffer from original sin or unmerited suffering. Though the origin of avidyā, or saṁsāra cannot be understood, it can be destroyed by jñāna and the ātman can go back to God and return no more to saṁsāra. But as long as its true nature is concealed by avidyā it is bound by karma and is subject to the rounds of births and deaths.
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