tman_and_moksa

SR No.: 020053
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: G N Joshi
Publisher: Gujarat University
Publication Year: 1965
Total Pages: 901
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 12 MB

Page 192

Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
160
Atman and Mokpa
is caused by ignorance. Ignorance is the root cause of all desires, infatuations and all the suffering of the world. It is said in the Buddhist Mahāyāna Texts --"The idea of ignorance is what gives the root to the huge poison tree of mundane existence with its trunk of pain."! Stcherbatsky also traces ignorance (nescience, illusion) to be the fundamental root cause of all suffering. It is a kind of misconception of the world to which we fondly cling but it necessarily leads to a total disappointment and frustration.
Schayer also agrees with this view and regards that the adequate knowledge of the world can bring about the cessation of pain and suffering. He admits the fact that nearly in all Indian Philosophical systems knowledge has been regarded as the ultimate means of the attainment of salvation. He writes — “The centre-point of Indian salvation theories was “knowledge ”, by which man acquires the power to annihilate suffering and to lead empiric reality back to its origin."3 Right knowledge of the causes of suffering leads to the annihilation of sufferings. Schayer further writes —"... the underlying idea is that knowledge is an efficacious power, so that it suffices to know an object to be able to control and to possess it."" He further states "Liberation thus
' 1 Cowell E. B. (Tr.): Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XLIX-36, p. 178.
2 Stcherbatsky Th. : The Central Conception of Buddhism, p. 35.
3 Schayer Stanislav: Mahāyāna Doctrines of Salvation, p. 14. * Ibid. p. 2.
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