Pravachanasara

SR No.: 003289
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: A N Upadhye
Publisher: Shrimad Rajchandra Ashram
Publication Year: 1964
Total Pages: 612
Language: Hindi, Sanskrit
Classification: Book_Devnagari
File Size: 16 MB

Page 120

Introduction
87
Nayavādins.1 'Syādvāda' says Prof. Dhruva 'is not a doctrine of mere speculative interest, one intended to solve a mere ontological problem, but has a bearing upon man's psychological and spiritual life'. It has supplied the philosopher with cosmopolitanism of thought convincing him that Truth is not anybody's monopoly with tariff walls of denominational religions and the religious aspirant with 'intellectual toleration' which is quite on par with Ahimsā for which Jainism has eminently stood for the last two thousand years and more.3
8. JAINA CONCEPTION OF DIVINITY.--The soul being tainted with karman develops states of consciousness which being auspicious or inauspicious receive karmic influx; and it is this karman that binds the soul and revolves it in samsāra. Essential characteristics of the soul are all crippled by the karmic encrustation of eight kinds (II, 95). The soul in this round-of-rebirths is subject to attachment, aversion and other psychic states tinged with passions which occasion further karmas (III, 43). The way out of this samsāra consists in Right faith, Right knowledge and Right conduct (I, 6). The first consists in believing in the nature of things or realities as they are, for instance the soul is essentially pure etc.; the second consists in comprehending the whole range of objectivity as preached by Arahantas or from the (p. 92:] Āgamas+ (1, 81-2; III, 33 etc.); and the last consists in adopting perfect equanimity after practising the essential duties and penances in an ascetic life that go to stop the influx and exhaust the deposit of karmas.
When the soul is free from the four destructive or malignant types of karmas, namely Jñānāvaraṇīya, Darsanāvaraniya, Mohaniya and Antarāya, it
1 Pañcāstikāya Intro. p 85. 2 Syādvādamañjarī notes p. 272. 3 Syädvāda or Saptabhangi attracted the attention of Orientalists mainly because Brahma
Sūtra of Badarāyaṇa contains a sūtra na ekasminnasambhavāt II, ii, 33, which really contains an attack against Anekantavada of the Jainas, and the spirit of the sūtra has been consistently immortalized by a host of commentators like Sankara, Rämānuja, Vallabha and others. It is not possible to say exactly the Jaina definition which Bädarāyaṇa had in view; but in all probability the Jaina definition contained a word ekasmin, and it was perhaps a forerunner of such definitions now met with in Jaina commentaries: praénavasād ekasmin vastuni avirodhena vidhi-pratişedha-vikalpana saptabhangi (Rajavārtika p. 24), or the anonymous verse whose source I have not been able to trace but which is quoted by Jayasena in his tīkā on Pañcâstikāya:
ekasminnavirodhena pramāna-naya-väkyatah /
sadādi-kalpanā yā ca saptabhangiti sā marā // Almost all manuals on Jainisum contain some discussion about Syādvāda, so an exhaustive bibliography is beyond the scope of this foot-note. Before one actually begins the study of Jaina technical works on Syādvāda the following books can be read with advantage. Jacobi's paper "The Metaphysics and Ethics of the Jainas'; Chakravarti: Pañcāstikāya, Philosophical Introduction (SBJ III); Dasgupta: A History of Indian Philosophy Vol. I, Chapter on Jainism; Radhakrishnan: Indian Philosophy Vol. I, Chapter on Jainism; Dhruva: Syädvādamañjarī Intro. & Notes. Important texts etc. have been noted by
Prof. Dhruva in his Introduction and notes. 4 Importance attached by the Jainas to their Āgamas can be seen from the third book of
Pravacanasāra.