________________
354
Bhagavati Sūtra
a beginning, then, there must be some point in time when the abode of the liberated souls called Siddhaśilā must have been without a liberated soul. The confusion is uncalled for. The Sütra leaves no gap when it states that relative to the category of perfected souls, any particular soul which is perfected is with a beginning, etc. Cf.
såi apajjavasia siddha na ya nāma tikālammi asi kayāi vi sunna siddhi siddhehiṁ siddharte savvaṁ sai sariraṁ na ya nama'dimayam deha sabbhāvo käla'nāittaņao jahā va räimdiyāinań savvo sãi siddho na yādimo vijjai tahā tań ca siddhi siddha ya sayā niddisphá ro ha pucchãe
The idea is that the perfected soul is with a beginning but without an end. In the past, there was never a time when the_. Siddhaśīlā has been without a single perfected soul. Time is eternal, so is body, and so are nights and days. There has never been time when there has not been a single body nor time when there have not been nights and days. Still everybody is with a beginning, just as every night and day is with a beginning. Likewise, all the perfected souls are with a beginning. They attain perfection at a point in time before which they had been like ordinary living beings tied to the cycles of births and deaths. There is not a perfected soul who may be without a beginning, and there is not a single perfected soul who may claim that he has been the first to be perfected. Expressions like padhama samaya siddha, anantara siddha, tirtha siddha, all point to the fact that a perfected soul is with a beginning. As a group, the perfected souls are without a beginning, i.e., they are eternal, but as individuals, all perfected souls are with a beginning.
5. Living beings who are to be liberated in a particular life are in possession of a power called bhavyat va labdhi. This power remains till a particular soul is liberated ; then it drops out. So a soul that is to be
