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 72

The Kaliedoscope of Jaina Wisdom
27
thing that has not been expressly given, of even the most insignificant form of unchastity, and of attachment even in its most harmless form. Besides keeping these five Mahāvratas or Great vows, which form part of the five-fold Căritra or monastic conduct, the ascetic, striving after Samvara, has always to be careful to act in accordance with the ideas of the Tīrthankaras, with reference to his external movements ( the 5 Samitis ), he has to control his inner nature ( the 3 Guptis ), has to comply with the ten-fold standard of the real ascetic ( the Daśavidha Yati-Dharma, which prescribes forgiveness, humility, simplicity, purity, etc.), he has continuously to turn over in his mind the 12 reflections ( as to the instability of all things, the loneliness of the soul, the changeability of happiness and pain, etc. ) and he has to submit to the 22 hardships ( as hunger, thirst, cold, heat, insect-bite, begging his food, etc.).
By leading a life within the strict limits of all these prescriptions, the chief principles of which are non-injury and selfrestriction, a state can be reached, when all the Ghāti-Karmas, i.e., the detrimental Karmas, are exhausted. Then, the original qualities of the Soul shine forth undisturbed, omniscience arises, and after the remaining neutral Karmas (the Aghāti-Karmas ) have likewise been consumed, the ascetic gives up his body for the last time, and enters salvation. The Soul, free from all earthly weight, rises straight upward to Siddhaśilā, where all the Siddhas stay, bodiless, but still individually distinguished from one another, in eternal happiness and in omniscience, taking no more part in any earthly concerns whatsoever.
Some of the Kevalis or Omniscient Ones become, before entering salvation, Arhats or Tīrthankaras, i.e., the Renewers of the Jaina Doctrine, who start a new Tīrtha, i.e., four-fold community, and become the instrument of the enlightenment and salvation of numerous people. The worship of these Jinas and their idols, as it is still practised today, is far from being 'idol worship’ in its idea, but it has, with much better right, been called “ideal-worship' for the