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JAIN JOURNAL : Vol-XXXVI, No. 3 January, 2002
Now, these persons who do not know well the actual fact regarding the footprints of the wolf, speaking, though many in number like a single person, may create confusion in the minds of ignorant men; but still, their words would never be acceptable to those who are well-aware of the truth. So also, there are many preachers (vadin) who are really cunning sellows disguised as pious ones and who have the sole aim only of cheating others.
G. then introduces his comments on the next verse (SDSam, v. 82) as follows : To show what her husband advised her to do after that the author says.'
S. offers an alternative (slightly different) interpretation of 'drink and eat :
or, drink' means 'drink the lips, etc. (of the beloved)' (i.e. engage in the act of kissing), and 'cat' means 'enjoy the objects of pleasure.' And all this is the advice coming from an impassioned man. That is, crown your youth with success.
This is an Indian parallel to the carpe diem (enjoy the day) theme so well known in European poetry. 15 It also follows from the Cārvāka doctrine that opposed senseless asceticism the followers of which fondly hoped that some virtue would accrue from all kinds of abstinence and self-torture (a concept so dear to the Jains). 16
The oldest reading of the second verse (SDSam, v. 82) also shows its link with the first verse : This body is only a collectivity' refers back to 'man' (puruşah) in v. 81a; v. 83-84 continue the theme of the elements and their collectivity;
15. See Chris Baldick. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, Oxford,
New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, p. 31. 16. Dharmakirti in his auto-commentary on the Pramanavärttika (1.342)
said :
vedaprāmānyam kasyacit kartsvādaḥ snane dharmecchā jātivādāvalepah / samtapārambhah pāpahänāya ceti
dhvastaprajñānām pañca limgäni jädye // (Belief in the authority of the Vedas, and in some creator (of the world), desiring merit from bathing, pride in (high) caste and practising selfdenial for the eradication of sins-these five are the marks of the stupidity of one whose intelligence has been destroyed). Quoted in : Rahula Samkrityayana, Darśana Digdarśana (1944) (in Hindi), Allahabad, 1978, p. 806 nl.
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