Charlotte Krause her Life and Literature

SR No.: 001785
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Shreeprakash Pandey
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith
Publication Year: 1999
Total Pages: 674
Language: English, Hindi, Gujarati
Classification: Book_English, Biography, & Articles
File Size: 11 MB

Page 124

The Heritage of the Last Arhat
fundamental passions, viz., anger, pride, deceit and covetousness, of which the last includes all kinds of attachment to lifeless as well as living things, and many other regulations, fall likewise under this heading, notwithstanding their being rooted in Ahiṁsā after all.
Another important expedient of securing one's personal metaphysical advantage in fullest accordance with the laws of ethics, is very closely akin to, and based on, renunciation : I mean Tapa, i.e., austerity, or self-imposed suffering undertaken for religious reasons. The purpose which the Jaina has in view when practising austerities, can be understood from the idea that all suffering means a consummation of bad Karma, and that the voluntary undergoing of certain hardships has the further advantage of giving, at the same time, valuable assistance in the realization of the two great principles Ahimsā and Samyama. Thus :
सउणी जइ पंसुगंडिया विहणिय धंसयइ सियं रयम् । एवं दविओवहाणवं कम्मं खवइ तवस्सी माहणे ।।
( Daśavaikālika Sūtra) “As a bird, gets rid of the dust with which it is covered, by shaking itself, just so the monk, who practises austerites, consumes and shakes off his Karma.”
To get of Karma, is (as we saw before ) the first step towards self-realization, and therewith to the highest transcendental bliss. This is the reason why austerity plays such an important part in the life of the Jaina, be he a monk or a layman. According to the Jaina scriptures, there are various ways of practising austerities, all of which are being started with the respective Pratyākhyānas too, after their duration and other items have been accurately fixed. With reference to Tapa, there are Pratyākhyānas by which the quality, quantity, or time of one's meals is being reduced, from the simple giving up of special kinds of food, or of eating at night, and from partial fasts, and fasts of a whole day or several days, upto fasts of more than a month's duration. There are, moreover, Pratyākhyānas by which one binds oneself to practise certain ascetical postures, to