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 78

Introduction
from Suddha niscaya point of view, and the Vyavahāra point is explained only to avoid possible misunderstandings; and lastly the spiritual statements from Niscayanaya may prove socially and ethically harmful to the house-holders who are almost absolutely lacking in spiritual discipline. The majority of the statements are in a reflective and meditational tone sometimes even in the first person. The aim of the author is to impress on the readers that ignorance resulting from karmic association has barred many a soul from self-realisation; so every aspirant must rise above all attachment and realise the soul as absolutely pure, sentient, omniscient and completely distinct from lifeless stuff (ajtva): this is the highest pitch of Jaina spiritual teaching. The author takes it for granted that his readers are already acquainted with Jaina terminology, and he goes on brooding over the real nature of the soul, sometimes distinguishing it from matter, sometimes discussing the nature of karman, its influx, bondage etc., and sometimes showing the way of stopping and exhausting the karman. There is a simplicity and directness in his utterances which appear like the attempts of the author to express the incommunicable which he himself has experienced. He is very fluent, jubilant and exhilarated, when he goes on reflecting on the pure nature of the self. It is no wonder, therefore, if he has not cared for what is called systematic exposition seen for instance in his works like Căritta-påhuda. He would repeat ideas and sentences just to make the topic [p. 48:] more impressive. Here and there, when the text is read without using the commentaries one feels that groups of traditional verses are intruding on the context indicating perhaps that many traditional verses were included, when this text came to be so shaped by Kundakunda.
45
The author's reference to Do-kiriyāvāda in 85-6 is interesting, though it is not discussed in detail. The tenet that the soul can be the agent of its psychic states and also of karmic modifications, is not accepted by Jaina philosophers. In the Svetambara canon, too, the Do-kiriyäväda, in its various aspects, has been criticised; according to the Svetambara tradition the promulgator of this creed was Arya Ganga who flourished 228 years after Mahavira1.
The next interesting reference is to the Samkhya doctrine in gäthās 117, 122 and 340, by name. The position of Puruşa and his relation with Prakṛti are some of the weak stones in the structure of Simkhya ontology: Purusa being ever free can never be bound; it is the Prakṛti that is bound and liberated. The question can be raised, if there is no bondage why talk of liberation; and if there is no real connection between Puruşa and Prakṛti, how the false conception of such connection can rise? It is these points, such as Prakṛti does everything and Puruşa is neutral without doing anything, that are attacked. The Jaina position is that the soul or spirit is the agent of various bhavas or psychic states whereby there is the influx of karman leading to further bondage; when the karmas are destroyed, with their causes rooted out and the existing stock evaporated, the soul attains its natural purity constituted of eternal bliss and omniscience.
The text of Samayasara has 415 verses according to Amṛtacandra's recension and 439 verses according to that of Jayasena; it is not only the question of additional 1 See Bhagavati-sūtra I, ix, sūtra 75; I, x, sūtra 18; II, v, sūtra 100 etc.; also Viseṣāvasyakabhāṣya 2424 ff.