Jaina Iconography

SR No.: 011018
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: B Bhattacharya
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas
Publication Year: 1974
Total Pages: 247
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 48

Jaina Iconography
of a thing from one point of view—that of its material, place, time and naturel (Syäd asti) and deny it from these attributes of another thing (Syad nāsti). All affirmations are true as well as false in some sense (Spād asti nästi). A thing is unpredicable when we should affirm both existence and non-existence at the same time froin the same point of view (Syad avaktavya). From the point of view of its own quarternary and at the same time from the joint quarternary of itself and nothing, a thing is and is unpredicable (Syād asti avaklavya). Similarly a thing is not and unpredicable (Syād asti nāsti avaklava).? Every proposition starts with a 'perhaps', a may be or a Syâd and suggests the absolute affirmation or denial as impossible. What is mea
eant in short by these seven modes are but different stand-points (Naya) of the position, form etc, from which the existence of every object can be regarded in order to have a full view of it.
On the cthical side, certain scriptural injunctions bind the Monks and the Laity to a moral systein of a specialised character. The most important of them is the five-fold vow of the Jainas-viz. (i) non-injury, (ii) renunciation of lying, (iii) abstinence from theft, (iv) chastity, (v) detachment from all external and internal temptations.? No religion, as mentioned before, has carricd Ahiisā further i.e. respect for and abstinence from everything that has life. The most orthodox among the Jainas drink only carefully strained water, and their ascetics before they sit brush the ground before them with a broom of peacock's fcather or a cloth-brush Icst any visible animalcule be crushed. It is enjoined in their canonical books that a man should practise certain resignations of mind by thinking that nothing in the world really belongs to him, should abstain from all intoxicants, from gambling, from adultery, from hunting, from taking food at
1. FET, Fagan, Fae and #17 I 2. Scc Mallişena's Syādrādamañjari, p. 169 ff.; for a clcar exposition of
the doctrinc Vidc Prof. S. Rādhakrishnan's Indian Philosophy Vol. 1,
Pp. 302-304. 3. हिंसानृतस्तेयाब्रह्मचर्यपरिग्रहेभ्यो विर तिव्रतम् ।
Taltzārtha-rāja-Vārtlika, Ch. Vii. I.
(Sanātana Jaina Series). _cr. अहिंसासव्यास्तेय ब्रह्मचर्यापरिग्रहा योगः ॥
Yoga Sūtras