Jaina Mysticism and Other Essays

SR No.: 006933
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Kamalchand Sogani
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy
Publication Year: 2002
Total Pages: 166
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

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the objects of devotion. They are, no doubt, not affected by devotion, and remain quite indifferent to human weal and woe. They are beyond attachment and aversion. Why is, then, devotion directed to them? The answer is that by our devotion to the arhat or the siddha our thoughts and emotions are purified. A great heap of punya is deposited in the self by devotion. By virtue of this there results spiritual advancement. This sort of change in the devotee cannot result from worshipping a mere stone, hence the importance of devotion for arhat or siddha. Thus the aspirant should not breathe in despondency for the aloofness of arhat or siddha. Those who are devoted to the siddhas and arhats are automatically elevated."
2 (vii). Concept of Arhat and Siddha : By performing spiritual exercises, an aspirant or a muni attains to spiritual perfection, the goal of religious endeavour. He, earns the title of arhat or arhanta. Now arhat may be of two types — tīrthankara and non-tīrthankara (ordinary omniscient soul). The distinction between the two is this that the former is capable of preaching and propagating religious doctrines in order to guide the mundane souls immersed in the life of illusion, and his sermons are properly worded by ganadharas, while the latter is not the propounder of religious principles, but silently enjoys simply the sublimity of spiritual experience. We shall now deal with the characteristics of arhanta. First, the Acāränga tells us that an arhanta is established in truth in all directions. He is ātmasamāhita (established in the ātman). He has freed himself from anger, pride, death, greed, hatred, birth and death. In the state of arhat-hood there are neither senses, nor is there any calamity, nor astonishment, nor sleep, nor desire, nor hunger; there is only nirvāṇa.74 Secondly, arhantas lead a life of supermoralism but not of amoralism. He is no doubt beyond the category of virtue and vice, good and evil, punya and pāpa, yet he may be pronounced to be the most virtuous soul, though the pursuit of virtuous life cannot bind him to mundane cycle of birth and death.75 Thirdly, just as a mother educates her child for its benefit and a kind physician diseased orphans, so also the arhat instructs humanity for its upliftment and dispenses spiritual pills
Jaina Mysticism and other essays
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