Practical Path

SR No.: 006703
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown
Publication Year: 1917
Total Pages: 268
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 11 MB

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their own creed more uncertain than ever, and their practical value is confined to the useless hair-splitting
THE PRACTICAL PATH.
Sankhya-Karika, Eng. Trans., publ. by Mr. Tooka Ram Tatya, p. 30). One might as well infer that all dogs have their tails cut on seeing one with a cut-off tail.
We now come to the tattvas without a clear determination of which no headway can be made in philosophy or religion. The tattvas signify the essential points, or heads, under which the subject of enquiry is to be studied, and must be determined rationally, that is to say not in a hap-hazard manner, but by the exact methods of scientific analysis. The scope and aim of religion being the prosperity and, ultimately, also, the salvation of living beings, its investigation is directed to the ascertainment of the nature of the soul as well as of the causes which go to cripple its natural freedom and energy and those that enable it to attain the Supreme Seat. The true tattvas, therefore, are only those-jiva, ajivu, and the likewhich are laid down in the Jaina Siddhanta, all others being forms of tattvabhasa--a falsehood masquerading in the garb of a tattva.
Bearing these observation in mind, we shall see how far the six schools may be said to have got hold of the right tattvas. To begin with the Sankhyan philosophy which lays down the following twenty five tattvas:
(i) purusha (spirit),
(ii) prakriti, consisting purely in three gunas (qualities), namely, sattva (intelligence), rajas (activity) and tamas (inertia),
(iii) mahat which arises from the conjunction of purusha and prakriti, (iv) ohamkara,
(v-ix) five sense-organs,
(x-xiv) five organs of action-hands, feet and the organs of speech, excretion and generation,
(xiv-xix) five characteristic sensations-touch, taste and the like corresponding to the five senses,
(xx) mind, and
(xxi-xxv) five gross elements, ether, air, fire, water, and earth. The first two of these tattvas are said to be eternal, the remaining twenty three arising from their conjunction by evolution. As regards the merit of this method of enumeration, it has little to commend itself to common-sense, the semblance to a tattra being