Is the same soul who moves frome one body to another?
Yes. According to Jain Dharma, it is the same individual soul (jīva / ātmā) that moves from one body to another.
In simple steps:
- Soul and body are different
- The body is made of matter (pudgal). - The soul is consciousness (jīva) – it knows, feels, experiences. - They are always separate substances, only temporarily connected.
- What happens at death
- When a body dies, the connection between that soul and that particular body breaks. - In the very next instant, driven by its own karmas, that same soul takes birth in a new body (in any of the four gatis: human, animal/plant, heavenly, or hellish).
- Identity of the soul
- The soul is beginningless and endless. It is never created new and never destroyed. - So the “owner” of all experiences in past, present, and future lives is the same jīva. - What keeps changing is only the body, place, form, and circumstances according to karma.
- Why we don’t remember past lives
- Because of obscuring karmas (especially knowledge‑obscuring and deluding karmas), ordinary beings do not remember previous births. - Lack of memory does not mean it is a different soul; it only means our knowledge is covered.
- Final goal
- When that same soul destroys all karmas through right faith, knowledge, and conduct, it becomes liberated (siddha) and then never takes another body.
You can read a short, simple explanation of rebirth and what happens after death here and about the soul (jīva) here .