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 224

210 Harmless Souls is omniscient and, as the Tattvadipikā puts it, does not feel any desire, curiosity or doubt)?89 The answer is that he meditates on 'supreme happiness' (param sokkham 2:106) which, according to the Tattvadīpikā (on 2:106), is as much as to say that the self 'continues as simply a one-pointed awareness in a state of calm'.90 This is the attainment of 'perfection, whose svabhāva is innate knowledge and bliss'.91
In other words, meditation is not only the instrument of liberation but it also characterises the state of the liberated: path and goal constitute a single practice.
iii) Jñāna It has been shown that knowledge about the true nature of the self, combined with meditation on that nature, constitutes Kundakunda's path to liberation. However, given the omniscience of the arhat, knowledge occupies an even more central place in Kundakunda's soteriology than the above might at first suggest. For he equates knowledge with the knower (i.e. the self); they are co-extensive and omnipresent. This formula, and the relation of knowledge to the objects of knowledge, must now be considered in greater detail.
Śruta Skandha 2 of the Pravacanasāra (jñeyatattvaadhikāra) ends with the following gāthā:
Therefore, having thus realised that the self is innately disposed to be a knower, stationed in unpossessiveness, I turn away from the idea of 'mine'. [Pravacanasāra 2:108]
The Tattvadīpikā comments:
89 abhilașitam jijñāsitam samdigdham - TD on Pravac. 2:105. 90 anākulatvasamgataikāgrasamcetanamātrenāvatisthate - op. cit.
91 sahajajñānānandasvabhāvasya siddhatvasya - ibid. For the equation of 'happiness' with knowledge, omniscience and liberation, see Pravac. 1:59 and Upadhye's footnote on p. 8 of his translation of 1:59.