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 163

Kundakunda: The Pravacanasāra 149
Since the effects of dematerialising karman and of seeing the soul as eternally pure are so far-reaching, it is little wonder that the Jainas struggled, by means of the naya doctrine, to preserve at some level the orthodox views that karman is material and that the soul has always been bound by it. For, liberated by this same naya distinction, Kundakunda is veering not just towards the heterodox, but towards the heretical; his doctrines entail not only a change in Jaina theory or 'philosophy', but, more importantly, they imply wide-ranging changes in Jaina practice, and so pose a threat to the whole social structure of Jainism as an independent Indian religion.
5.2 Moha
Before examining Kundakunda's mechanism of liberation in detail, it is useful to say something more about the role of what, according to parts of the Pravacanasāra, has become the effective instrument of bondage: namely, moha and its attendant 'passions'.
The classical position, outlined at Tattvārtha Sūtra 8:9, is that there are 28 kinds of deluding (mohaniya) karmas. Without enumerating all the subtypes, the basic division here is between 'perception-deluding' (darśana-mohanīya) karmas and 'conduct-deluding' (cāritra-mohaniya) karmas.
That is to say, mohanīya karmas produce moha or avidyā by deluding the jīva with regard to its belief and its conduct; or as P S. Jaini puts it, mohaniya-karman is karman that prevents the true perception of reality and the purity of the soul'. 53 In simplified diagrammatic form the division appears as follows:54
53 JPP p. 346 (Glossary); see also ibid. p. 131.
54 For a full enumeration, see SS on TS 8:9; Glasenapp pp. 8-11; JPP pp. 118-121.