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 229

Kundakunda: The Pravacanasāra 215
stressed by Kundakunda:
He who knows is knowledge; the self does not become a knower through knowledge; knowledge develops of itself, and all objects are found in knowledge. 105
As Faddegon puts it in his translation of this gāthā, 'the self does not by the help of its knowledge become somethingthat-is-knowing (jñāyaka)';106 knowledge is thus the natural or revealed state of the karmically unobstructed ātman. The Tattvadipikā explains that this equation obtains because 'the self is an actor of the greatest supremacy and power in whom agency and instrumentality are united'. 107 In other words, the pure self does not do anything; despite the confusion of terminology it is not an 'actor' in the ordinary sense of that word, it simply is.108 Moreover, all the objects of knowledge, since they are said to be found or 'stand' (tthiya/sthita) in knowledge, are thus also found in the self which has been equated with knowledge. 109
It is in this context that passages such as those quoted from the Niyamasāra (159; 166 see above) should be understood. The pure self or kevalin knows everything without coming into possessive relation with anything notself.110 Knowledge is essentially a matter of indifference or non-attachment, not of possession. That is to say, it is not the result of a process ('knowing') but a permanent state which is revealed and realised through meditation on the true nature of the self. Such meditation focuses on the status of the relationship between jiva and ajīva, the knower and the known; the full realisation of that
105 Translation after Upadhye p. 5.
106 Faddegon's trans., p. 21.
apṛthagbhutakartṛkaraṇatvaśaktipāramaiśvaryayogitvād
107 ätmanaḥ - TD on 1:35.
·
108 Cf. Niyamasāra 172.
109
Pravac. 1:23, 1:26-7, 1:36: tamhā ṇāṇam jīvo.
110
See 2:108 and TD, above.