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 179

Kundakunda: The Pravacanasāra 165 monk'.86 This external decorum was the response to 'an overwhelming demand for empirical evidence of a monk's internal state'.87 Thus the monk's moral habit, which is primarily an internal state, becomes 'instantly recognizable by a pattern of behaviour'.88
Such an explanation for the function of external practice is, of course, highly theoretical, since to achieve the optimum inner purity it is necessary to become an ascetic, and the only way to become an ascetic is to adopt the ascetic's vows. It is clear, therefore, that in practice the external must precede the internal. (The rationale works both ways: since the ascetic cannot follow his course of discipline without the necessary inner purity, the very fact that he is following it demonstrates to himself and others that he does have the requisite inner resources.) Nevertheless, the need for this type of theoretical justification of ascetic discipline demonstrates the extent to which the level of internalisation reached by Kundakunda and consolidated by his commentators offers a serious threat to standard Jaina practice. In other words, although the rationale for continuing ascetic practice may be weak, it is recognised that there does have to be some kind of rationale, otherwise the very complex of behaviour which provides the Jainas with their social and religious identity is made redundant. Thus, from this perspective, the real tasks of the post-canonical writers and scholastics are seen to be, on the one hand, the acknowledgement of the practical limits of 'carefulness' and, on the other, the need to rein in the logic of internalisation before it bolts and leaves behind any necessity for external practice, thus discarding the social identity such practice carries with it. As we have seen, a central element in this struggle to reinterpret ancient ascetic practices in doctrinal terms which are compatible with new social circumstances is the redefinition of what
86 Gombrich 1984, p. 100.
87 Ibid. 88 Ibid.