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152
Part 2
(a)
Ethics and Conduct General Aspect
383
Ethics and conduct are terms applicable to the human sphere alone in the ordinary sense. However, the Jainas tend to involve all forms of living beings in dealing with this theme, which often makes it difficult to demarcate a clear-cut line between the ethical activities of human beings and mythological ones. We are forced to endure this awkward position in handling this subject matter. The materials received here are divided into three groups, i.e., (1) Loyalty and faith, (2) Five vows, and (3) Minor ethical problems.
(1) Loyalty and faith
384
1.3.30-31 read that the jina teaches only what is true beyond doubt and by accepting and abiding in his teachings, one becomes a loyal follower (aradhaka). Then MV commands his disciples in 1.3.33 that just as monks (ettha; etasmin) are to follow (gamaniya) his teachings so also should householders (iha) behave, and just as householders are to follow his teachings so also should monks behave. 1.3.30-31 and 33 are relevant to the problem of loyalty (aradhana), and are clumsily edited in the context of kanksamohaniya karma and parināmavāda. In sutra 30, the concept that a kevali knows and sees all in the three tenses of time, thereby his teachings are true beyond doubt has not yet arisen. The term aradhana occurs in the Brhatkalpa 1.35, for instance, which became fashionable in the age of story composition when church construction was in process. MV himself might have said something like sutra 33 pronounces as the promulgator of the sect, but the text seems to be alluding to the age when the lay Jainas were in the process of forming their communities. We can therefore place these passages in the second and the third canonical stages.
385
Heretics maintain in VI.10.353 that conduct is supreme inasmuch as knowledge is supreme, and conduct without knowledge is supreme inasmuch as knowledge without conduct is supreme. According to MV's view, a person with conduct unaccompanied by knowledge and a person with knowledge unaccompanied by conduct are partially loyal, a person with both conduct and knowledge is completely loyal, and a person devoid of both is completely disloyal. This text reflects the time when this subject matter relevant to mokşamarga was the point of debate among the philosophical circles, on which the Jainas could not have kept silence. Let us place this text in the fourth-fifth canonical stages. 7.10. 354 classifies loyalty into three types, i.e., jnana, dar's ana and caritra, which are each subdivided into the highest, middle and lowest grades. The text then attempts to exhibit their possible alternative combinations, for instance, the highest grade of jnana can go with the highest and middle grades of darsana or with the highest and middle grades of caritra. It also tries to see in which
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