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Notes Bk. I
227
life-span and suffering. For this, the process is the subject-matter of Q. 59, wherein cutting of karma means transforming kaima with a long-span into one having a short-span ; piercing means changing the deep-effect karma into slow-effect one and vice versa ; burning signifies the process by which karma-atoms are turned into pudgala-atoms so that they are no longer in occupation of the soul-spaces ; and dying signifies the termination of karma determining name, lineage and life-span. Exhaustion is total elimination of karma bondage, and hence of suffering, when the soul is free, restored to its liberation, perfection and enlightenment.
20. The use of the present perfect tense to signify what appears to be the present continuous tense is justified by Mahavira on the ground that once the goal is set and the process of liberation gets started with conscious effort, it must end. For, the last thing, viz., the goal, in this case, is made first, by the striving soul, and then starts the process of liquidation of the intervening stages, so that once the thing is set going, it must reach the end.
Cf. 'The last of life, for which the first was made.'
- Browning.
It is interesting to recount here that fourteen years after Mahāvira's enlightenment, the doubt was raised by one of his disciples (son-in-law) Jamālī, who found that almost nothing could be done in a moment, and that most things needed more than a moment to be completed. So, he felt, one should not say "it has been done' till it was really done. A thing which was in the process of being done was not actually done' till the process came to an end. On this ground, Jamāli not only refuted the philosophical principle propounded by Mahāvīra viz., that 'a thing in the process of being done should be considered as already done', he even left his group. He was joined in this by his wife (Mahāvira's daughter) Anojjhā (Priyadarśanā) ; but she soon realised that what Mabāvira had propounded was correct, and returned, but not Jamāli. The point is that the principle propounded by Mahāvīra is based on niscaya naya, while the doubt raised by Jamālī stands on vyava
