Agam 05 Ang 05 Study Of Bhagvati Vyakhya Prajnapti Sutra

Author(s): Suzuko Ohira
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

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rely upon a kevali's testimony of the existence of pancastikayas. MV is extremely pleased with Madruka's defence. Inferential methods in proving the existence of an invisible thing as such occur to the Jainas only in the fifth canonical stage. Also a layman's repartee on the theoretical problem as such hardly occurs in the previous stages. Here Madruka appears to be well acquainted with the Jaina doctrinal system of jiva-ajiva. This text is thus assigned to the final canonical stage.
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How the realities of dharma or the conditional cause of motion and adharma or the conditional cause of the stoppage of motion evolved is a bewildering problem. The Jainas assume that motion is inherent in jiva and pudgala. Dharma-adharma are thus the unnecessary realities for the Jainas to explain world occurrences. However, one problem crops up in this connection the Jainas allotted siddhas' abode at the top of loka, therefore they were in the position to explain logically why siddhas cannot go beyond the boundary of loka. XVI.8.585 attempts to offer the naive reason that motion always occurs when jivas try to fetch matter to nourish themselves, but jivas and matter do not exist in aloka, so devas are not able to go there (cf. A-1-1). However, siddhas do not require to nourish themselves, therefore there is no reason why they cannot stay in aloka according to this logic. The Jainas are here compelled to offer a logical reason why siddhas have to remain at the end of loka but are not allowed to go beyond, and for the sake of this, the realities of dharma-adharma had to be hypothesized. How these came to be formulated seems to be as follows."
In a certain stage, the Vaiseṣikas introduced into their system of purely natural philosophical investigation of world phenomena the doctrine of adrsta or the invisible cosmic force, which is said to embody itself through the work of dharma or merit and adharma or demerit, as so evinced in the existent Vaísesikasutra. This doctrine of adrṣta enabled the Vaiseṣikas to explain away any causes occurring in the natural phenomena that are inexplicable by known experience. For instance, the cause of the movement of a needle incurred by magnet, the cause of water circulation in plants, the cause of upward motion of fire, the cause of sideways motion of air, the cause of the motion of atoms when they come into contact, the cause of the initial movement of the mind and so on, are said to be due to adṛṣṭa in the Vaiseşikasutra Chapter V. At the same time, as we understand in its Chapter VI, this doctrine enabled them to bring in a religio-moral basis to their purely natural pohilosophical system in the following way: a reward of rebirth in heaven is gained by adṛṣṭa, in consequence of dharma or virtuous practice of the prescribed observances, and in consequences of the knowledge of padarthas which is also produced by dharma, and liberation is attainable when the physical embodiment ceases to arise in the total absence of adṛṣṭa which causes the subsequent embodiment.