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

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Pravacanasāra
consists in devotion to Arahantas etc., in showing affection to all the followers of the doctrine, in preaching about the doctrine, in receiving and feeding the pupils, in rendering assistance to the fourfold ascetic community, in conferring benefits on all without expecting anything in return, and in helping a co-monk if he is suffering from disease etc. He may have a talk with common people when he has to help a diseased monk. Disciplinary formalities in behaviour are not forbidden in Subhopayoga (45, 47-56). Monks of Suddhopayoga have grasped all things properly, have renounced attachment for external and internal paraphernalia and are not steeped in pleasures of senses (73). A monk is not to dabble in worldly professions. He should observe his course of conduct thoroughly understanding the nature of food, touring, place, time, physical labour, his forbearance and bodily condition. Devotion to ignoble persons has no beneficial results. A monk who has abstained from improper conduct, who has ascertained the reality, and who is peaceful and perfect in asceticism, will soon attain liberation; then he is pure, Siddha (31, 57-60, 72).
CRITICAL REMARKS ON PRAVACANASĀRA.-The division of Pravacanasāra into three Books is to be attributed to Kundakunda himself, because we have, at the beginning of each book, significant benedictory verses and because each book has its contents systematically shaped in a self-sufficient manner but still not altogether disconnected with the remaining two books.
Taking a detached view of the broad outlines of the contents, it is found that Kundakunda gives some important lessons to a novice who is just on the threshold of asceticism and wants to enter the order of coenobites. It is required of him to maintain an undisturbed spiritual mood, completely abandoning Aśubhopayoga and not attaching much importance to Subhopayoga but always intent on Suddhopayoga, that immediately raises the individual spirit to the level of the Universal one that is completely free from karmas, infinitely potent, full of knowledge and happiness. It is a climax of spiritual evolution where the subject-object relation is not to be seen, where the individual retains its individuality, and where the spirit being endowed with omniscience is able to know and see all the objects with their modifications without any spatial and temporal limitations. In that stage transcendental knowledge and happiness are experienced eternally. This is the spiritual aim of the novice; to understand and realize it fully it is necessary that the novice must have a clear perspective of the objects of knowledge and their modificational and attributal fluctuations, of the measure of responsibility on the spirit in fashioning his own karmas, of the agency and causes of karmas, and of the nature of meditational ecstasy which would rescue the spirit from the cocoon of karmas. When the aspirant is properly equipped, he enters the order, observes the primary virtues, is absolutely nonattached and passionless, is devoted to [p. 62:] scriptures, maintains strict ascetic discipline, cultivates Suddhopayoga, tries to stop the influx and to destroy the stock of karmas, and thus gradually attains that stage of selfevolved Siddha.
There are some other topics included in this work only to elucidate the above contents. The exposition is methodical, and the reader is gradually taken from one