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food, in want of comfort, and in mortification of the flesh. The mental tapas contains various items as confession of sins, and penance, monastic duties, obedience, modesty, self-restraint, and meditation (dhyāna). I wish to lay stress on the fact that in the course of asceticism taught by the Jainas, meditation is only one of the many steps leading to the ultimalate goal. Though Nirvaņa is immediately preceded by the two purest stages of meditation, yet all other parts of tapas appear of equal importance. We shall see the significance of this fact more clearly when we compare the Jaina tapas with what corresponds to it in Sänkhya Yoga. Their Yoga contains some of the varieties of Jaina tapas, but they are regarded as inferior to meditation or contemplation. Indeed the whole Yoga oentres in contemplation; all other ascetic practices are subordinated and subservient to contemplation-dhā. raņā-dhyāna-and samādbi. This is but natural in a system which makes the reaching of the summum bonum dependent on Jäāna (knowledge). The theory of the evolution of Prakriti, beginning with Buddhi, Abaņkāra and Manas, appears to my mind, to have been invented in order to explain the efficiency of contemplation for acquiring supernatural powers and fur liberating the soul. Sankhya yoga is a philosophical system of ascetics; but their asceticism has been much refined and has become spiritualized in a high degree.
The asceticism of the Jainas is of a more original character; it chiefly aims at the purging of the soul from the impurities of Karman. Jainism may have refined the asceticism then ourrent in India; it certainly rejected many extravagances such as the voluntary unflicting of pains; but it did not alter its character as a whole. It perpetuated an older or more original phase of asce ticism than the Brāhmanical yoga and carries us back to an older stratum of religious life in which we can still detect relics of primitive speculation in the shape of such crude notions as I have had occasion to mention in the course of my paper.
In conclusion, I shall shortly touch on the current of Indian philosophical speculation viz the philosophy of the Pundits which
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| SR No. | 008001 |
| Book Title | Shraman Bhagvana Mahavira Part 1 |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Ratnaprabhvijay, D P Thaker |
| Publisher | Parimal Publication |
| Publication Year | 1989 |
| Total Pages | 650 |
| Language | English, Sanskrit |
| Classification | Book_English, Biography, History, & Religion |
| File Size | 15 MB |