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 177

TATTVĀRTHA SŪTRA
has moksa for its chief subject-matter. Hence the author divides into three departments the dharma that is the means of moksa and thus refers to it in his first aphorism.
Samyak-darśana or right inclination, samyak-jñāna or right cognition, samyak-cāritra or right conduct—these three combined are the means of mokșa. 1.
In this aphorism there is a bare indication of the means of mokşa. Although the nature and the possible sub-types of each are in the sequel going to be described in details here is a brief account of their essential nature.
The Nature of Moksa
The perfect spiritual development resulting from an absence of bondage and of its causes is called mokşa. That is to say, the supreme level of knowledge and of the state of dispassion is moksa.
The Nature of the Means of Moksa
That qualification or power whose development brings about a realization of truth—that is, of the nature of things as they are—or whose development brings about an inclination towards valid discrimination between what is worthy of rejection and what is worthy of acceptance is samyak-darśana or right inclination. A valid comprehension of the fundamental verities like soul etc.—a comprehension arrived at through the instrumentality of naya and pramāņa!—is samyak-jñāna or right cognition.
The free enjoyment of one's own nature that results from a cessation of all defined mental states, that is, of all attachment
1. The cognition which is expressible through words—that is, in which a thing is reflected in the form of a subject and a predicateis naya, the cognition in which a thing is validity apprehendedcompletely or in part-without bifurcation into a subject and a predicate is pramāņa. For further details see chapter one, aphorism 6; also Nyāyāvatāra w 29-30 Gujarati translation.