Tulsi Prajna 2002 01

SR No.: 524610
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Shanta Jain, Jagatram Bhattacharya
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
Publication Year: 2002
Total Pages: 122
Language: Hindi
Classification: Magazine, India_Tulsi Prajna, & India
File Size: 6 MB

Page 84

Some philosophers attempted at realising the events of birth and death by their constant endeavor to attain the state of direct intuition of those events. They realised the eternal cycle of birth and death, that is, transmigration of the soul from birth to birth. At the end of such realisation, they declared that there were people who had intuition of past and future lives, and that there were also people who were bereft of such intuition
It has been explained in the Výtti that such experience of transmigration is not possible for beings not endowed with mind. And among beings, cndowed with mind, only some have the experience of transmigration from particular direction, while others have not. The Sūtra makes such experience as the starting point of its disquisition:
I have migrated from the castern direction, of from the southern direction, or from the western direction, or from the northern direction, or from the direction above, or from the direction below,
or from any intermediate direction. This question of life before and life hereafter is of supreme importance not only for those who believe in the existence of the soul, but also for all living beings endowed with reason. To ignore this question is to deny the truth about birth and death. In the absence of such query the birth of philosophy itself would be impossible. Is it possible to disentangle the soul from the body? If it is not possible, the issue of brith and rebirth will be only imaginary and unreal. Only if it was possible to disentangle the soul from the body, it would be feasible to comprehend that the body and the soul are not identical entities.
This is expressed in the sūtra 'I have to soul that is subject to birth or I have none that is so'. All people have no intuition as to what I was in the past or what shall be in the future after departing from here. We find two investigating sütras in this context: 'what I was in the past'--this is concerned with the past life, 'what shall I be in the future'—this is concerned with the future life.
Is such intuition possible? To this query, Lord Mahāvīra says that it is possible to have intuition of the past life as well as the future birth. There are three sources that prove such possibility: ones own power of recollection: exposition by the Jina having the power of direct knowledge, and hearsay, i.e., heard from some one who had learnt about it from one who commanded direct knowledge.
THAT YFI Hati--ATE, 2002
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