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 215

Kundakunda: The Pravacanasāra 201
6.4 Meditation in the Pravacanasāra
i) Dhyāna The first direct reference to 'meditation' (hāna / dhyāna) in the Pravacanasāra occurs at gāthā 2:59:
He, who having conquered the senses etc., meditates on the pure manifestation of consciousness (which is) the self, will not be affected by karmas. How then can the life-essentials (prāņā) follow him?.56
The prānā - the 'life-essentials' or 'animating principles' - do not, as Upadhye explains, 'form the nature of the soulstuff, but they are the indications or the signs of the presence of the soul in an embodied condition'.57 That is to say, they are the only available means by which a jīva may be detected in samsāra; or as the Tattvadipikā on Pravacanasāra 2:53 puts it, they are the reason for the vyavahāra condition of the jīvä, as opposed to its condition as it is in itself, its niscaya condition.
The prāņā are fourfold - of the senses (imdiya), of the channels of activities (bala) [viz. body, speech and mind), of duration of life (āu / āyu), and of respiration (āņappāna / ānaprāņā) (Pravacanasāra 2:54). The jiva 'lives' in samsāra (in the past, present and future) by virtue of these prāņā, which themselves originate from material substances (poggala-davva / pudgala-dravya) (2:55). As the Tattvadipikā on 2:55 is at pains to point out, the prāņā, because of their material basis, cannot reach the innate nature of the soul.58 Inevitably, given their materiality, the prāņā are seen as being both the effects and the causes of
56 Translation after Upadhye. 57 Upadhye p. 19, fn. 1 on 2:54 (trans.).
58 tan na jivasya svabhāvatvam avāpnoti pudgaladravyanirvrttatvāt - TD on Pravac. 2:55.