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 38

24 Harmless Souls and animals, and 2) moksa. The latter will be the condition of the jīva of the ideal monk, and the former that of the jīvas of everyone else, whether householder or monk.57 Āyāramga 1.6.2.1 reads:
Though some know the misery of the world, have relinquished their former connections, have given up ease, live in chastity, and, whether monk or layman, thoroughly understand the law, they are not able (to persevere in a religious life). The ill-disposed, giving up the robe, alms-bowl, blanket, and broom, do not bear the continuous hardships that are difficult to bear. He who prefers pleasures will, now or after a short time, be deprived (of a human body, not to recover it) for an infinite space of time. And thus they do not cross.(samsāra), for the sake of these pleasures which entail evil consequences and are associated with others of their kind.58
It is clear from this that anything short of full mendicancy will entail a long series of miserable, nonhuman rebirths. Similarly, as Dixit points out, 59 at Āyāramga 1.3.4.4, in a sequence which begins with anger (koha) and ends with pain (dukkha), re-birth is described not only as entry into a womb (gabbha), a new birth (jamma), and a new death (māra), but also as characterised by a birth among hellish beings (naraya), animal existence (tiriya) and pain (dukkha).
In this respect, it is significant that the Dasaveyāliya Sutta, for instance, states that for a monk to return to the life of a householder apparently necessarily entails (among
57 See ibid. p. 16. - 58 Jacobi's trans., with minor alterations, of:
āuram logam āyāe caittā puvva-samjogam hiccā uvasamam vasittā bambhaceramsi vasu vā aņuvasu vā jāņittu dhammam ahā-tahā ah' ege tam accāi kusilā vattham padiggaham kambalam pāyapuñchaņam viosijjā anupuvveņa anahiyāsemāņā parīsahe durahiyāsae. kāme mamāyamāṇassa iyāṇim vā muhutte vā aparimāņāe bheo, evam se aạtarāiehim kāmehim ākevaliehim; avinnā c'ee - Āy. 1.6.2.1 - Schubring's text (1910).
59 Dixit 1978, p. 16.