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COMPENDIUM OF JAINISM
• 'by freeing the mind from passions of every kind like anger, greed,
love and pride etc but also by repentance for the sins or lapses committed after making a frank and full confession of the same before his or her Guru. One should acquire mental and spiritual poise before adopting the vow.
Thé “Ācārănga Sūtra” has explained the three kinds of Sallekhanā : bhaktapratyākhyāna maraṇa, ingita maraṇa and pădapopagamana.9 The first one is prescribed for a well-controlled and instructed monk. He should desist from doing, causing, or allowing to be done any movement of the body, speech or mind. The second one which is still more difficult requires the monk not to stir from one's place and check all motions of the body. The third one is still more difficult. The monk should examine the ground most carefully and lie down wholly unmindful of his body, putting up with all kinds of mortifications of the fiesh. He should seek enlightenment in the contemplation of the eternal characteristics of the soul without any delusions of life. A monk or a pious layman should reach the end of his life without any attraction to external objects after having patiently chosen any one of the three methods for attainment of Nirvāņa.
Ācārya Kundakunda las referred to this vow and stated that death is of three kinds : bāla-maraņa. bālapaņdita-maraṇa, and pandita-maraņa. 10 Bāla-marana is the death of an individual who has right faith but does not possess full self-control. The second is a kind of death which is faced by a house-holder who has reached the fifth siage of his spiritual progress, and who is unable to abstain from the himsā of one-sensed beings and is still indecisive in the matter of self-restraint. Pandita-maraṇa is the death of an ascetc who has attained pure knowledge about his own self. The death of Tirthankaras or Gañadharas is of this kind.
Since the main object of all vows and austerities is the liberation of the soul from the bondage of Karmas, the objectives of the vow of Sallekhanā are : the Karmas obscure the inherent qualities of the soul; the mind and body should be led towards
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