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 253

Kundakunda: The Samayasara 239
is in its self (svabhāva) - is conflated with the idea that that state of the liberated self is actually achieved by realising, i.e. 'knowing', that it is the true or real state of the self. And it is in this way that the realisation or 'definition' of the self is seen to be both means and end, the way to liberation and the state achieved.
So whether samaya is read as the true condition of the self or as a definition or 'view' beyond alternatives, it comes finally to imply self-realisation and thus liberation. This process in itself illustrates the growing stress on 'selfrealisation' in Jaina doctrine, even if some of the gāthās collected under the heading of Samayasāra were not originally so gnostic in tenor. It is the gnostic, however, which in the end comes to overlay and alter the meaning of the other layers. A change of context, with its new juxtapositions, inclines some older or more orthodox doctrines towards new meanings. Whether or not one attributes all these shades of meaning to an individual compiler ('Kundakunda') is strictly not relevant to my purpose, which is to explicate a particular doctrinal tendency and its implications for practice.
7.2 Vyavahāra-niscaya: the two truths doctrine
We have already seen how the doctrine of two truths was employed in the Pravacanasara. The use to which this vyavahāra-niścaya doctrine is put in the Samayasāra is more complex and requires some independent discussion before we examine the ways in which it is applied to the mechanism of bondage and liberation.
First, I shall point out a number of apparent contradictions in the text. Gāthā 8 reads:
Just as a non-Aryan is not able to make another understand [anything] without his non-Aryan speech, so without the conventional truth instruction in the highest truth is not possible.
That is to say, initial instruction has to be couched in