Agam 05 Ang 05 Bhagvati Vyakhya Prajnapti Sutra Part 02 Bhagvai Terapanth

SR No.: 006599
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Tulsi Acharya, Mahapragna Acharya, Mahendramuni, Nathmal Tatia
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
Publication Year: 2009
Total Pages: 740
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Agam, Canon, & agam_bhagwati
File Size: 20 MB

Page 593

Bhagavai 7:6:107-112
-: 569:
experienced as harsh' and 'what is experienced as soft'. In the next dialogue, karma would be explained as leading to the experiences of pleasure and pain. The experiences as harsh and soft are not exclusively related to the feelings of pleasure and pain, as they have concern with many other varieties of experience of karma. On the other hand, the experience of pleasure and pain is related to only the feelingproducing karma. The set of eighteen sinful acts viz., injury to life etc. is the cause of binding of the harsh-experience karma. The cause of the bondage of painproducing karma is inflicting suffering, torture, etc. upto others. The cause of binding of soft-experience karma is abstinence from the set of eighteen sinful acts. The cause of the bondage of pleasure-producing karma is compassion on living beings: The distinction between these two varieties of karma viz., harsh-soft experience and pleasure-pain-sensation becomes clear on account of the different causal conditions of their binding.'
Abhayadevasūri has identified abstinence as self-restraint. Non-abstinence means non-self-restraint, which is the common cause available in all the soul-groups viz., those of infernals, etc.. So the binding of harsh experience karma occurs in all souls. The subject of self-restraint (absolute abstinence) are the humans exclusively. So, the binding of soft experience karma is possible only in the humans, not in any other soul-group. The pleasure-pain-sensation karma is possible in all the twenty-four soul-groups.
It is true that the injury to life is the cause of karmic bondage but abstinence from injury to life is a kind of-inhibition, and as such, is the cause of stoppage of karmic bondage. How could then it be the cause of binding of soft-experience karma? This problem leads to the implication that wherever there is inhibition, there must occur an auspicious activity; and where there is occurance of an auspicious activity, there must be the falling away of karma; and where there is the falling away of karma, there must take place the binding of meritorious karma, which occurs up to the 13th stage of spiritual development.
The meritorious bondage that takes place on account of an auspicious activity accompanying inhibition in a self-restrained person is the bondage of soft-experience karma.
The soft-experience karma is not only related to non-destructive karma but it has association with the destructive karma as well. In the self-restrained person, on account of his passions, there is the constant bondage of the four destructive karmas like knowledge-covering etc. and the three non-destructive inauspicious karmas (i.e. the four non-destructive karmas excluding the life-span-determining karma), but on account of his abstinence from injury to life, his bondage is that of softexperience karma. The soft-experience karma which is meritorious but not productive of any evil fruition is not the cause of mundane transmigration. Similarly, the soft experience which is inauspicious is also not the promoter of mundane transmigration. Such karma falls away easily by producing its soft result that has no evil effect on the soul.