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Concept of Santhārā (Samādhimaraṇa) in Jainism : 65 of one's attending on one's self but forbids receiving help or assistance from others.
3. Padopagamana-maraṇa
The third one is still more difficult. In this sort of maraṇa, the person neither attends his own body nor insists others to look after him. The monk should examine the ground most carefully and lie down wholly unmindful of his body, putting up with all kinds of mortification of the flesh. He should seek the enlightenment in the soul without any delusions of life. A monk or a pious layman should reach the end of his life without any attraction to external objects after having patiently chosen any one of the three methods of death for attainment of liberation.
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Acarya Kundakunda has referred to this vow of Santhārā and stated that death is of three kinds: Bālamaraṇa, Bālapaṇḍitamaraṇa and Panditamarana. Bālamaraṇa is the death of an individual who has right faith but does not possess full self-control. The second is a kind of death which is faced by a householder who has reached the fifth stage of his spiritual progress and who is unable to abstain from the himsa/violence of one-sensed being and is still indecisive in the matter of self-restraint. Panditamarana is the death of an ascetic who has attained pure knowledge about his own self. The death of Tirthankaras or Gaṇadharas or of monks is of this kind.
The procedure of Santhārā
Santhārā is to be performed at the last phase of a regular religious career. Both the levels of persons householders and houseless monks/ nuns may perform this vow according to one's capacity. A householder is advised to first perform eleven pratimās (special kind of advance spiritual practices), in which he practically leads the life like an ascetic. At the end of this practice, he is to give up food and drink and wait for death. The procedure of abstinence from food for fasting unto death is explained in detail in Acaranga-sūtra." "Having abstained from food, he should lay peacefully, and untouched by
| SR No. | 525093 |
| Book Title | Sramana 2015 07 |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Sundarshanlal Jain, Ashokkumar Singh |
| Publisher | Parshvanath Vidhyashram Varanasi |
| Publication Year | 2015 |
| Total Pages | 114 |
| Language | Hindi |
| Classification | Magazine, India_Sramana, & India |
| File Size | 13 MB |