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 64

Introduction
31
and given up, and the duration of life came to an end due to poison etc. (24-25). All things in this world were tasted and much water drunk, but still there is no satisfaction (22-23). Because of the absence of bhāva, the soul has wandered everywhere, dying various wretched births, dwelling in the dirt of maternal wombs and eating dirty fluid in childhood (31-41 etc.). Bhāva is the potent means to effect the destruction of samsāra.
The glories of bhāva are untold. Various virtues, religious practices, austerities, scriptural study and knowledge: all these are simply a farce in the absence of bhāva (20, 4, 5, etc. 70 etc. 87 etc. 97 etc. 105 etc. 125 etc.). This possession of bhāva brings manifold glories to the soul (126 etc.). As long as there is some ability, one should try to cultivate the purity of mind and heart by undertaking various religious practices (130 etc.). There are 363 (p. 33:] heretical creeds (kriyāvadin etc.) which should be given up, and one should be firm in Jainism (135, 140).
When there is no bhāva, passions actually ruin the spiritual destiny of the soul. Bahubali's spiritual progress was hindered by his vanity, even though he had no attachment for his body. On account of nidāna, 1 the saint Madhupinga could not be a monk, and the saint Vašiştha suffered misery (44-46). Bāhu, though a Jaina monk, burnt the town of Dandaka due to internal hatred and fell into the Rauravahell; so also Dipāyana, though a monk in appearance but devoid of real merits, wandered in infinite samsāra (49-50). Sivakumāra, though encircled by young ladies, could put an end to samsāra because of his heroic and pure mind. Bhavyasena could not be a bhävasramaņa (i.e. an ascetic with bhāva), even though he had learnt 12 Angas and 14 Pūrvas, nay the whole of the scriptural knowledge; while Sivabhūti, whose bhāva was pure, attained omniscience by simply uttering tusa-māsa (51-3).2 Even the fish Sālisiktha, due to impurity of mind, fell into a great hell (86). A good man, when endowed with purity of mind, is not contaminated by passions and pleasures like a lotus-leaf by water (152).3
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Nidāna is a sort of remunerative hankering; it consists in hankering after future pleasures and enjoyments as a remuneration of the penances etc. practised in this life. One. who wants to achieve an equanimous and peaceful voluntary submission to death (sallekhana), must keep his mind free from the attitude of nidāna (Sarvärthasiddhi VIII. 37), which is also a kind of monomania or painful concentration (årtadhyāna) (Ibidem IX, 33). The words tusa-māsa symbolically stand for the concept that the body is absolutely distinct from the soul, like the husk from the bean; Śrutasagara gives a story on this gāthā, and explains that phrase thus: tuşān maso bhinna iti yathā tathā sarīrād ātmā bhinnah . I have put together, in this paragraph, the legendary references from Bhävapähuda. It is necessary that all such legendary anecdotes, incidentally referred to in early Svetāmbara and Digambara texts, should be put together to have a glimpse of the initial capital of Jaina myths. Such references are found in Jaina texts like Painnas, Bhagavati Aradhanā of Śivakoti, Mūlācāra etc. A partial attempt in this direction, mainly confined to the Painnas of the Svetambara canon, is already made by Kurt von Kamptz in his monograph 'Uber die vom Sterbfasten handelnden ältern Painna des Jaina-Kanon' Hamburg 1929. I have listed alphabetically all the legends from Bhagavati Arādhanā of Sivakoti and I find that some legends are common with Marana-samādhi Painna of the Svetämbara canon. Thus, many of these legends antedate the division of the church, and they are independently preserved by Digambaras and Svetämbaras.