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126
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERATION IN INDIAN RELIGIONS
According to Jainism, an arhat is an ideal saint, a supreme teacher and an omniscient self. Those who are fully devoted to him get emancipation. His presence is supremely enlightening. He is an embodiment of perfect knowledge, bliss, power and peace. By virtue of his self-realization, sublime concentration and formulation of the triple path of right faith, knowledge and conduct, he is equal towards friends and foes, pain and pleasure, blame and fame, life and death, sand and gold. He is beyond attachment and aversion and he is totally disinterested and dispassionate.168
The arhats are sometimes considered as making two categories of tirthamkara and non-tīrthamkara or ordinary kevalin. The difference between ordinary kayalin and a tirthamkara is that the tirthamkara preaches and propagates the dharma, the law, and forms a community (samgha) of monks,nuns, laymen and laywornen in order to show the right path, the path to attain mokşa, whereas the ordinary kevalin cannot be the propounder of a religious faith. It is due to the attain ment of super-divine powers that a tirthamkara becomes the founder or reviver of a religious faith for a considerable period for the suffering humanity. The ordinary omniscient one lacks all those superdivine powers but enjoys the sublimity of perfect knowledge.
The state of a jīvanmukta can be compared to that of an arhat or tirthamkara or jina who is an embodied paramātman, whereas the siddha state is the state of disembodied liberation. 169
TIRTHAMKARA
This is a compound word made of tirtha, ford, bridge or the religious path, and kara, maker or builder. In other words, tirthamkara, (tirthakara, titthagara) means a saint who makes a bridge to cross over the ocean of transmigratory existences. The Jaina tradition affirms the existence of twenty-four tirthamkaras from Ķsabha to Mahāvīra. This word seems to be peculiar to Jainism and it is understood to mean a Teacher or revealer of the truths of the Jaina faith. The word tirtha is also understood to mean a holy community or place. The Jaina tirtha or samgha comprises four categories of members : monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen. They follow the teachings of the tirthamkara, pray to him, worship him and praise him, considering him a paragon of religious perfection.
168. Pravacanasara, I. 13 and the comments of Amstacandra. 169. Karttikeyānuprekşa, 198.
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