The undoubted and absolutely correct comprehension of the nine truths which the Jina gives expression to, or of the philosophical system which the Jina taught, represents the second Jewel—the true Knowledge. Its principal features are shortly as follows. [Footnote: More complete representations are to be found in Colebrooke's _Misc. Essays_. Vol. I, pp. 404, 413, with Cowell's Appendix p. 444-452; Vol. II, pp. 194, 196, 198-201; H. H. Wilson's _Select Works_, Vol. I, pp. 297-302, 305-317; J. Stevenson, _Kalpasûtra_, pp. xix-xxv; A. Barth, _Religions de l'Inde_, pp. 84-91.] The world (by which we are to understand, not only the visible, but also imaginary continents depicted with the most extravagant fancy, heavens and hells of the Brahmanical Cosmology, extended by new discoveries) is uncreated. It exists, without ruler, only by the power of its elements, and is everlasting. The elements of the world are six substances—souls, _Dharma_ or moral merit, _Adharma_ or sin, space, time, particles of matter. From the union of the latter spring four 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.