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 72

Introduction
39
sed, following the words of Jina, this work as an excuse for self-meditation. His aim is to give some essential discussion on Three jewels which necessarily (niyamena) form the path of liberation (2-4). Right faith consists in believing in āpta, agama and tattvas, after the description of the first two (5-8) follows the detailed discussion about the tattvas or principles of Jainism. Jiva is described with regard to its two upayogas and its natural and abnormal modifications (10-19); then further are discussed non-sentient principles, namely, matter, dharma, adharma, ākāśa and kāla; with Jiva they are called six substances, and the same are known as astikāya, when time or kāla is excepted (20-37). It is the duty of the soul to relinquish the objects external and pursue its own nature, since every soul, from the point of view of initial purity, is a Siddha itself (38-51). This Right faith is devoid of perverted motives.
Right knowledge is free from doubt, perversity or delusion and vacillation; and it consists in the correct understanding as to what is acceptable and what is rejectable (51-52).
Right conduct, from the vyavahāra or ordinary point of view, consists in observing five Mahāvratas, five Samitis and three Guptis, all of which are precisely defined (56-68); this topic is concluded with some remarks from the niscaya point of view (69-70) and with the description of five dignitaries, viz., Arhat, Siddha, Ācārya, Upādhyāya and Sädhu (71-75). Then, in order to confirm the aspirant in his bhedābhyasa or bheda-vijñāna (77-82), a discussion about Right conduct from niscaya-naya is set forth mainly describing the āvašyakas (with their attendant reflections) such as Pratikramaņa (83-94), Pratyākhyāna (95-106), Alocană of four kinds (107-12), Kāyotsarga (119-23) (these two being the forms of prāyaścitta 113-118), Sāmāyika (124-33) and Parama-bhakti which is two-fold: Nirvști and Yoga-bhakti (134-40). An exposition on āvaśyaka, which is defined as avasassa kamma āvassayam, is given from the realistic point of view. These rites like pratikramana etc. lead a monk to vītarāga caritra, passionless conduct; these are verbal rites, and one should exert one's utmost to convert them into meditational ones; the practice ofāvas. yakas leads to self-realization (141-58) attended with omniscience wherein darsana and jñāna are simultaneous, just as light and heat are simultaneous in the Sun. Omniscience is not merely self-illuminating, but it [p. 42:]illuminates, at the same time, other objects as well; in fact it is the essential nature of the soul. The various activities of an omniscient do not involve any further karmic bondage, at the termination of his age, with all the karmas tracelessly destroyed, the liberated soul shoots up to the top of the world (loka), where he halts eternally because of the absence of any cause for movement, and enjoys unparallelled eternal happiness (159-83).
and belongs possibly to the first half of the 12th century A.D. Further in the light of Nidugall inscription (EC, XII, Pavugada Nos. 51-52) of about 1232 A.D., I would say that Padmaprabha was a pupil of this second Viranandi; so he might have flourished about the middle of the 12th century A.D. It remains to be seen, however, as to what data would
be supplied by various works referred to and by different quotations in his confmentary. 1 Simultaneity of jñāna and dargana in an omniscient is upheld here; Siddhasena, too,
in his Sammatitarka II, 3 ff, accepts this very position; while Jinabhadra-kşamāśramana (Viseşāvasyakabhāsya 3132 ff.) and a host of other Svetāmbara authors, following their Canon, especially Nandi, Prajñāpanā and other texts, say that jñāna and darsana in a Kevalin are kramena, step by step, and not yugapat or simultaneously.