In Jain Dharma, birth and rebirth are not of the pure atma. The atma is eternal, changeless in its essential nature, and never truly born or destroyed.

What actually happens is:

• The atma, due to karma, takes birth in different bodies.
• This cycle is called samsara or punarjanma.
• The body is made of pudgal, and pudgal itself has origination and destruction.
• So, physical birth belongs to pudgal-made body, while rebirth is the atma’s continuation of bondage with new bodies because of karma.

Simple understanding:

• Atma: eternal, only changes its state of bondage or liberation.
• Pudgal: born, changes, decays, and is destroyed.
• Birth of a living being: atma gets a new pudgal body.
• Rebirth: atma enters another body due to karmic bondage.

So the correct Jain understanding is:

Birth and rebirth are of the embodied jiva, not of the pure atma; and the body is pudgal.