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 146

132 Harmless Souls
bondage, just as we infer the association of an immaterial consciousness and a material object from the experience of perception.
He then refers to the passage from the Pravacanasāra and the Tattvadīpikā (2.82) which we have noticed above. 16
The attempts of the Tattvadipikā to explain the fact of bondage, given these conditions, merely circle the conundrum without engaging it (and it is difficult to imagine what solution could be offered to a problem expressed in such terms). Thus the Tattvadipikā on Pravacanasāra 2.86 'explains' that the ātman has innumerable space-points (pradeśa), equal to those of the inhabited universe (lokākāśa);17 within those pradeśas the soul vibrates, depending on the 'atom groups' (vargaņā) of body, speech and mind. Karmic material, having a similar vibration (parispanda), enters the pradeśas and remains there. Then, if the soul is in a state (bhāva) of moha, rāga and dveșa, it is also bound. (In addition to the problem of how a bhāva brings about material bondage, here there is also the question of how material atoms can 'cause the immaterial soul to vibrate.) The Tattvadipikā on Pravacanasāra 2.85 claims that the modifications (paryāyas) of rāga, moha and dveşa are limiting adjuncts (upādhikas) in relation to the jīva, and that their oneness with the jiva constitutes bondage. Moreover, the bondage (interpenetration of jīva and karmapudgala is merely the occasion (nimitta) of their mutual modifications, i.e. they modify themselves, not each other. 18 Quite how this process is set off is again not explained.
The commentary (Tattvadīpikā) on Pravacanasāra 2.82 related this directly to the upayoga doctrine, explaining
16 JPP pp. 113-114. 17 On this, see JPP p. 102.
18 jīvakarmapudgalayoh parasparapariņāmanimittamātratvena visistatarah parasparam-avagāhah sa tadubhayabandhah - TD on Pravac. 2:85.