Samayasara

SR No.: 006530
Original Sutra Author: Kundkundacharya
Author: Jethalal S Zaveri
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
Publication Year: 2009
Total Pages: 336
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, Agam, & Canon
File Size: 15 MB

Page 288

Samuyasāra
Chapter - 10 tion of the pure nature of the soul necessarily presupposes the destruction of the impure states of the consciousness-perverted faith, knowledge and conduct-and during its spiritual advancement the soul destroys the perverted knowledge etc., but the destruction of the soul's own modes has no effect on the physical substance, because the psychic attributes of the soul have nothing to do with the physical existence. The impure emotional states of attachment, aversion and perversion which emanated from delusion will disappear and the soul will attain its pure state with the destruction of delusion. Quoting this law, the author reminds us that, nowhere in the scriptures, there is any indication of destroying the karmic matter. The term demolition of karma for attaining final liberation does not mean destruction of karmic matter and if one believes that the soul has to destroy karmic matter to become enlightened he is very much mistaken. What is destroyed is perversion and delusion which are soul's own impure states, in order to produce right faith, right knowledge and right conduct. The nature of the physical existence is incapable of accommodating the impurity and the restoration of purity of consciousness.
Yet another important metaphysical law lays down that every substance is the material cause of its own modes and no other substance is capable of producing them and transferring them on to the substance to which they belong. The modes of a substance are identical with it because the substance itself is focused in the modes. They are not absolutely different from substance as in that case they would not belong to the substance; for example, clay is transformed into a jar and so the former is regarded as the cause of the latter. The jar is, no doubt, different from clay, but the jar could not be a jar unless it was the same substance as clay. The mode and the substance may, thus, be viewed as identical and also as different, as they are both in one. A mode and a substance are different because they are two and they are identical because one is not absolutely independent of the other. The absolutist way of looking at things leads to the affirmation of one and to the negation of the other. The error is the result of the habit of the absolutist philosophers to put the telescope on the blind eye and then to assert that the other aspect is not real. The law of anekānta voices the necessity of using both the eyes and of seeing the obverse and the reverse of the coin of reality.