Tattvartha Sutra

SR No.: 006796
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Sukhlal Sanghavi, K K Dixit
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 2000
Total Pages: 596
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Tattvartha Sutra, & Tattvarth
File Size: 10 MB

Page 102

INTRODUCTION
systems; in the Yoga system' they are even described in details. Even so, it is in the Jaina system that there has come into existence a detailed and thoroughgoing discipline devoted to these doctrines-something that has not happened in the case of any other system. That is why in the course of his investigationinto-conduct Vācaka Umāsvāti, while offering an account of the karma-doctrine, introduces, though briefly, the entire Karmaśāstra (=the discipline devoted to karmas) of the Jainas. Likewise though from the standpoint of the essentials the investigationinto-conduct undertaken by the three systems Jaina, Buddhist and Yoga pursues an identical course, yet for certain reasons they are found to differ from one another as to the question of practice. And it is this difference that has assumed the form of the speciality of the adherents of these systems. Thus according to them all right conduct consists of a renunciation of klesa (= affliction) and kaṣāya (=passion); but from among the so many possible means for realizing it one lays emphasis on one, another on another. Within the body of the ethical discipline of the Jainas bodily torture seems to dominate,3 within that of the Buddhists emphasis is laid on meditation instead of bodily torture, within that of the mendicants adhering to the Yoga system emphasis is laid on breath-control, purity etc. If bodily torture, meditation and breath-control etc. are properly made use of with a view to realizing right conduct-which is the main thing-then each of them is as important as another; but when these external subsidiaries turn into practical routine and there vanishes from them the aspect of being a means of realizing right conduct-an aspect which is their very soul-then they smack of mutual conflict and then one sect dismisses as useless the conduct recommeded by another. Thus in Buddhist literature the Jaina's penance dominated by bodily torture is found condemned before the adherents of Buddhism, while in the Jaina literature
4
1. See 2.3-14.
2. Tattvärtha, 6-11-26 and 8.4-26.
3. "dehadukkham mahāphalam'-Daśavaikālika, 8. 27.
4. Majjhimanikaya, sūtta 14.
85