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Ancient Jaina Hymns
333
As our poem recalls to mind ( st. 16 ff.), he was born in the city of Puņdarīkiņi in the period intervening between the Nirvāṇa of Kunthus, the 17th and that of Ārā, the 18th Tīrthankara, which latter is supposed to have taken place about % of a palyopama of years, i.e., aeons, ago. He renounced the world in the interval between Munisuvrata, the 20th, and Nami, the 21st Tīrihankara, obtained omniscience subsequently, and is destined to attain Nirvāņa by the time when the 7th Tīrthankara of the coming Utsarpiņi of the Bharata of Jambū-dvipa, Udaya, will have attained salvation, i.e., millions of years hence. 37
Thus much about the Tīrtharkaras collectively. As regards the individual Tirthankara ( also designated as Arhant or Jina ), he is, as has already been hinted at, so free from passion that not even traces of the four ‘kasāyas', viz., anger, deceit, pride and greed, mar the perfect peace of his mind. The omniscience which he has achieved, in fact presupposes the complete annihilation of the four types of ‘obnoxious karman' ('ghāti karman') which Jaina metaphysics assumes, viz.,
1. karman obscuring knowledge, 2. karman obscuring vision of mind, 3. karman preventing ethically correct acting, and 4. karman which produces obstruction in general.
Consequently, the four infinite qualities which in fact inhere, in latent form, in every soul ( the 'ananta-catuṣka'), viz., infinite knowledge, infinite mental vision, infinite bliss, and infinite power, are fully manifested in him. Nothing separates him from final emancipation but remnants of the four types of ‘non-destructive karman' ( 'aghāti-karman’), viz.,
1. karman pre-ordaining pleasure and pain,
2. karman pre-ordaining the duration of life in the respective incarnation,
3. karman pre-ordaining the characteristics of body and surroundings, and
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