Harmless Soul

SR No.: 001196
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: W J Johnson, Dayanand Bhargav
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas
Publication Year: 1995
Total Pages: 372
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, & Principle
File Size: 20 MB

Page 132

118 Harmless Souls inauspicious (aśubha), and pure (śuddha), and it becomes these states to the degree that its consciousness is them. That is to say, according to this view the jīva is not essentially different from its modification (pariņāma). So, as the Tattvadīpikā (on Pravacanasāra 1.9) remarks, when the ātman (= jīva) modifies itself through the bhāva of śubha or aśubha rāga (passion or attachment), having modification (pariņāma) for its svabhāva, it becomes śubha or aśubha, like a crystal modified by the colour of a red (rāga) contiguous object. Similarly, when it modifies itself through a pure, passionless state, 74 it becomes suddha, like a crystal modified by a pure colour (in effect, an unmodified crystal).
What then are the (soteriological) conditions or goals connected with these states or modifications of consciousness? At Pravacanasāra 1.11 we read:
When the self which has modified itself through dharma is joined to pure consciousness (sampayoga), it attains the bliss of liberation (nivvāņa), or if joined to auspicious (consciousness) it attains heavenly bliss.
Two stages seem to be implied here. First, it is necessary to modify oneself through dharma. Dharma has been defined (at Pravacanasāra 1.7) as 'conduct' (căritra), which could hardly be argued with from the orthodox Jaina point of view; however, in the same gāthā, dharma is further defined as sama (sama), equanimity, and sama as the pariņāma of the ātman in which it is free from the disturbance of moha (delusion).75 Dharma is thus not so much linked with cāritra in the sense of physical activity in the world, as with a particular state of mind, sama (Sk. śama, 'tranquillity', 'absence of passion'), connected here
74 suddhenārāgabhāvena - TD on Pravac. 1:9. 75 mohakkhohavihīņo - Pravac. 1.7 (= Sk. mohakṣobhavihinah).
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