Within the Tattvartha Sutra, the seven tattvas are presented as a coherent vision of how the conscious principle becomes bound and how it can be freed. First stands **jīva**, the living, sentient substance characterized by consciousness, knowledge, and perception, the very locus of experience and the seeker of liberation. In contrast is **ajīva**, the non-sentient realm, comprising all that is not soul: matter, space, time, and the media that enable motion and rest. Together, jīva and ajīva form the basic polarity of reality, the knowing subject and the known field within which the drama of bondage and release unfolds.

On this ground, the text then describes the dynamics of karma through **āsrava** and **bandha**. Āsrava is the influx of karmic matter into the soul, occurring through activities of body, speech, and mind when these are stirred by passion and ignorance. Bandha is the actual bondage, the binding of these karmic particles to the soul, shaping its future experiences and conditions. In this way, the soul’s own disturbed activity becomes the doorway through which subtle matter enters and adheres, veiling its innate clarity.

The path of spiritual practice is expressed through **saṃvara** and **nirjarā**, which address this process from opposite sides. Saṃvara is the stoppage of new karmic influx, achieved through restraint, vigilance, ethical discipline, and right conduct, so that fresh bondage no longer accumulates. Nirjarā is the shedding or dissociation of previously bound karma, brought about through austerities, spiritual effort, and the mature experiencing of karmic results. When these two are cultivated together, the soul gradually ceases to be further entangled and begins to cast off its old coverings.

The culmination of this vision is **mokṣa**, liberation, in which the soul becomes entirely free from all karmic bondage. In that state, the inherent purity of jīva stands unobstructed, characterized by complete knowledge, perception, bliss, and power. The seven tattvas thus trace a full arc: from the simple fact of conscious being, through the mechanisms of its entanglement, to the disciplined processes by which that being returns to its own luminous nature.