Studies in Jaina Philosophy

SR No.: 001616
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Nathmal Tatia
Publisher: Jain Cultural Research Society
Publication Year: 1951
Total Pages: 366
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, Knowledge, Yoga, & Epistemology
File Size: 9 MB

Page 337

300
JAINA YOGA
[CH.
not attach any importance to the supernormal powers that it might have acquired by means of the yoga. Then it reaches the fifth stage called annihilation of the residual karmans (urttisamkşaya). It now gradually destroys the accumulated karmans once for ever. On the annihilation of the obscuring (ghātin) karmans, the soul attains omniscience. Then in due time it attains final emancipation. This is in brief the plan of the Yogabindu.?
Next we come to Haribhadra's famous work Yogaarstisamuccaya. The author here distinguishes eight stages of yogic development. The work records a quite novel plan of classification of yogic stages. The most important feature of spiritual development is acquisition of samyagdrsti (love of truth). The soul undergoes gradual purification and along with the purification its drsti (love of truth) becomes progressively steady and reaches consummation in the realization of the truth. This gradual development of the drsti has been classified into eight stages viz. mitrā, tārā, balā diprā, sthirā, kāntā, prabhā, and parā. Before coming to the description of these drstis we shall refer in brief to the threefold yoga with the description of which the Yogadystisamuccaya opens.
A qualified yogic practitioner passes through a number of stages before he reaches the consummation of the practice. Sometimes even in spite of his knowledge and will he falters in his practice on account of spiritual inertia (pramāda). This faltering practice is call icchāyoga. The practice of one who has revealed spiritual energy and does never falter in his yogic practices, strictly follows the scriptural injunctions, and has developed penetrating insight is called śāsirayoga." The practice of one who has fully mastered the scriptural injunctions and has developed the power to transcend them is called smarthyayoga.6 This latter yoga, again, is of two kinds viz. (I) that which is accompanied by the dissociation of all the acquired virtues (dharmasarnyāsa), and (2) that which effects the stoppage of all activity (yogasarnyāsa). The first kind occurs at the time when the soul undergoes the process of apūrvakarana for the second time in the ninth stage of spiritual development while the second occurs in the last stage of spiritual development immediately after which the soul attains final emancipation. These viz. icchāyoga, śāstrayoga, and samarthyayoga are the three broad divisions of all the possible stages of yoga. The
1 lbid., 364-5.
2 Ibid., 366-7 3 Upadhyāya Yasovijaya has followed this plan in his Duātrirsikās No. 12 to 18 as contained in the Ovātrivsad-dvātrimśikā published by Sri JainaDharma-prasäraka Sabhā, Bhäwnagar. 4 YDS, 3 5 Ibid., 4
6 Ibid., 5 7 Ibid., 9.
8 Ibid., 10.