Unknown Pilgrims

SR No.: 007014
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: N Shanta
Publisher: Sri Satguru Publications Delhi
Publication Year: 1997
Total Pages: 820
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 333

Tattva, Reality
305
Although the yogas and kaṣāyas are the principal elements producing asrava, certain texts add three further factors:74 mithyatva or mithyādarśana, false belief, error, avirati, lack of renunciation, lack of self-control; pramăda, negligence, carelessness, a lack of vigilance in one's behaviour, a tendency against which the ascetics must constantly struggle.75 These three asrava-producing factors are connected with the yogas and kaşāyas and it is important to be aware of them in order to avoid bringing about asrava. 76
The type of asrava predominant in the life of a living being will determine to what category of beings he will automatically belong when his material body perishes. 77 The ăsravas and thus the four corresponding states of existence will each depend upon the nature and degree of intensity of the actions performed. These states are: the life of the regions below, animal and vegetable life, human life, life in the heavenly regions. Life in the regions below is destined for those in whose activities violence, cruelty and excessive attachments have predominated. 78 Animal or vegetable life is consequent upon
74 Cf. Sths 418a and DravSam 30; SamSa 109; 157-159, 161-163; in TS VIII, 1 these 5 elements are listed as causing bandha, which comes to the same thing.
75 The US devotes to this a whole chapter entitled: pramādasthāna, the state of negligence, in which the ascetics are warned against the slippery path which may lead them to the clutches of the passions and engulf them in the mire of karman; cf. XXXII, numerous passages exhort them to vigilance; cf. IV, 1; 6-8; X, 1-4; 26-30; 33-34.
76 These activities belong to the category bhāva-āsrava.
77 C1. Sths 373. Furthermore, the condition of life is said to depend on the nama-karmas which are aspects of the bandha; cf. PSa II, 25; 61. Asrava and bandha are indissolubly linked and for this reason the TS reverts time and again to these states of life in a specific, one might even say, personal manner by introducing the năma-karmas.
78 Cf. TS VI, 15; cf. TS III, 1-6 for a description of the infernal regions and also SkrS 1,5, chs 1 & 2; II, 2, 66-68; US XIX, 47-74 and KarmG III, 4-8.