Aapta Mimansa

Author(s): Saratchandra Ghoshal
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 39

CHAPTER I
37
body and its limbs), (7) Gotra (which attracts the soul into a new 'womb' upon which depends the Gotra, i.e., family or lineage of the individual) and (8) Antaraya (which prevents effectiveness and interferes with energy in general). Every unredeemed soul is under the sway of the above mentioned forces. ...Of these the first, second, fourth and eighth kind of forces are called ghatiya (destructive) because they stand in the way of the soul... They have to be overpowered before the desired perfection can be attained by the soul."1
"As regards the scientific nature of this enumeration, observation shows that the soul involved in the cycle of transmigration is unable to enjoy its natural perfection in respect of knowledge, perception and happiness, which therefore must be held in abeyance by some kind of force operating on it. We thus get three different kinds of forces, namely, (1) those which obstruct knowledge (Jñānāvaraṇiya), (2) those that interfere with perception and (3) those which stand in the way of happiness, leaving the soul to experience pleasure and pain through the senses (Vedaniya). Besides these, observation also proves the existence of another kind of force which does not permit the adoption of the Right Faith. The energies falling under this head are divisible into two classes: those which interfere with the very acquisition of faith, and those that offer opposition to its being put into practice. To the former class belong such forces as prejudice, bigotry, false belief and all those other kinds of mental energy, passions and emotions of the worst (anantānubandhi) type, whose uncontrolled and uncontrollable impetuosity deprives one of the full and proper exercise of the faculty of reflection, the most essential requisite for the discernment of truth; in the latter type, fall all those deep-rooted traits of mind, anger, pride, deceit and greed of different degrees of intensity other than the anantānubandhi already referred to which rob the mind of determination and serenity,
1. The Householder's Dharma by C.R. Jain, pages XXXVI-XL.