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 317

Kundakunda: The Samayasara 303
(i.e. external religious practice) has been largely abandoned; for others, ascetic practice retains its dominance as the emblem and preserver of Jaina identity. The significance of Kundakunda's works is that at one level they point in the direction that was to be taken by Yogindu while at another they prescribe largely conventional practices. Their eclectic nature entails internal contradictions, but it is these very contradictions which give commentators scope to temper the full (heretical) implications of the niscaya strand in Kundakunda's thought. Thus it is ensured that, in practice, the threat to Jaina conduct and social identity is circumscribed and remains latent rather than actual.
9.3 Liberation according to Kundakunda: some conclusions
As we have seen, in Kundakunda's soteriological theory liberation is a matter of knowledge (jñāna), of realisation of the true nature of the self through meditation. But in Digambara as in Śvetāmbara practice it remains a matter of largely external asceticism, the maintenance of (physical) ahimsā. This is because it is external practice that distinguishes 'Jainism' as a religious tradition. Whatever the philosophical rationale for doing so, such practices cannot be abandoned without threatening the Jaina's sense of identity. Jainism's life crisis rituals, which strictly speaking are irrelevant to soteriology, are largely taken from Hindu models;49 its doctrines, if taken to their logical conclusions (as they sometimes are by Kundakunda), become so internalised and karma is so dematerialised that the dividing line between such doctrines and those, for instance, of Sāmkhya and Vedanta becomes attenuated to the point of non-existence (except for a few, logically arbitrary points). It becomes crucial, therefore, to retain at some level the reality of the connection between the soul
49 See JPP pp. 291-304; R. Williams 1963, pp. 274-287; Sangave pp. 243-252, 381.