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THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERATION IN INDIAN RELIGIONS
who attained liberation while living on this earth. In one verse, they are described thus :
“Those whose impurities have been eradicated, who are luminous and who are released in this very world.”50
The behaviour of a jivanmukta is described in the following verse :
"His mind is quiescent, quies cent are his speech and deed; he has thus become a quiescent one when he has obtained liberation by right knowledge."51
The Bhagavadgitā seems to refer to a muni or an ascetic sage who has subdued his faculties, mind and intellect and who has destroyed desires, fears and anger, as always released (sadănrukta).52 The career of a bodhisattva detailed in Buddhist sūtras and śāstras also presents us with a grand picture of the theory and practice of jivanmukti. We have already seen above that the Buddhist sources describe Nirvāṇa as of two types : that with skandhas or aggregates of personality and that without the aggregate of personality. Jaina faith also distinguishes two types of liberated beings, the omniscients with yoga (sayoga-kevalī) who are called arhats or tirthamkaras, and those without yoga (a yoga-kevali), who are known as siddhas, the perfectly liberated beings. A late medieval Upanişad is called Muktikā-Upanişad. It declares that one can attain jivanmukti by studying and understanding the meaning of one hundred and eight Upanişads. It also distinguishes between jīvanmukti and videhamukti.
Here it is necessary to bear in mind the difference between the conception of mukti in Šramanic and theistic systems. The Śramanic concenption of mukti is frankly non-theistic. This has been discussed above in the chapters dealing with Jainism and Buddhism. In theistic systems, the conception of mukti has to be understood in the context of the doctrine of God. It is from the theistic standpoint that the Pārānandasūtra says that jīvanmukti consists in having a vision of the Deity worshipped (syopāsyadarśanam jivanmukti). Another theistic definition is found in the Sabdakalpadruma which describes a jīvanmukta as liberated from all bonds and established
50. 51.
Dhammupada, verse, 89. Ibid, verse 96. For this section on jivanmukti I am indebted to my teacher Dr L.M. Joshi. I have derived help from his article Conception of jivanmukti in in Guru Tegh Buhādur's Hymns.' Bhagavadgita V. 28
52.
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