In Jainism, your question touches the core of Jiva (soul) and Karma. I’ll keep it simple and fully within Jain philosophy.

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1. Are the number of souls in the universe constant?

• Jainism says:

- Souls (jīva) are: - Infinite in number - Eternal (never destroyed) - Beginningless (no first creation)

• No new soul is ever created.
• No soul is ever destroyed.

So:

• The total number of souls is infinite and constant (neither increases nor decreases).

Birth and death belong to the body, not to the soul. What we call “taking birth” is simply:

> A soul leaving one body and getting connected with another body according to its karma.

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2. Was there a first moment when souls were created?

No.

According to Jain philosophy:

• There is no beginning of soul.
• Every soul is anādi (without beginning) and ananta (eternal).
• The bondage with karma is also beginningless.

There was never a time when: - souls did not exist, or - the universe had to be “created.”

The universe (loka), matter (pudgal), souls (jīva), space, time, etc. are all eternal realities.

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3. If souls are constant, how do the number of living organisms increase?

Key point: You are looking only at visible life (humans, animals, plants, microbes we know), but Jainism says there exist countless, extremely subtle life-forms called nigoda jīvas.

a) Nigoda – the “hidden stock” of living beings

• Nigoda jīvas are:

- Extremely tiny, almost always in undeveloped form. - Present in unimaginable numbers everywhere. - Living in groups, sharing one common body (sādhāraṇa vanaspati, etc.).

From this huge “ocean” of nigoda jīvas:

• Some souls rise to more developed forms (like one-sensed, then two-sensed… up to human, celestial, etc.) when their karma matures.
• So when we see more humans or more animals, it is not that new souls are created.
• It is that already-existing souls (often from nigoda or lower gatis) have now taken more developed bodies.

So:

• Total souls = constant (infinite)
• Visible organisms = appear to increase or decrease

because souls keep moving between: - nigoda - plant life - animals - humans - heavenly beings - hellish beings

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b) One body ≠ one soul always

Another important Jain concept:

• Some living bodies have only one soul (pratyeka-kāyik jīva)

e.g. a single human, a cow.

• Some bodies have many souls in one body (sādhāraṇa-kāyik jīva)

e.g. certain plants where innumerable souls share a common body.

So:

• Even if the number of physical bodies seems to increase or decrease,
• The number of souls behind them remains constant and infinite.
• Also, in things like bacteria, splitting of bodies does not mean splitting of souls; different souls simply take different new bodies.

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c) Population increase on Earth

When human population increases on Earth:

• Souls are coming from:

- animal births - plant births - lower forms - other regions (other parts of loka) - nigoda

• So we never need “new souls” to explain population growth.
• It is just redistribution of existing souls into different types of bodies.

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Summary

1. Are the number of souls constant?

- Yes. Souls are infinite, eternal, beginningless, and indestructible. No new soul is ever created; none is ever destroyed.

1. Is there a beginning of soul?

- No. Every soul is anādi (without beginning). Its bondage with karma is also beginningless.

1. If souls are constant, how do organisms increase?

- Because: - There are infinite subtle souls (nigodas) that can evolve into higher forms. - Many souls share one body in some life-forms. - Souls move between different types of bodies (humans, animals, plants, etc.), so the visible number of certain organisms changes, but the total souls always remain the same.

This is the traditional Jain explanation, preserving the eternal, beginningless nature of soul and karma.