Dravya Sangraha

Author(s): Nemichandramuni
Publisher: Chandraprabha Digambar Jain Mandir Trust

Page 57

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Dravy a-Sangraha
COMMENTARY
Asrava has been defined to be the cause of the bondage of Karma i. e. that by which the Karmas enter the soul. Elsewhere, we have "those from which Karmas flow are called Asravas." These definitions are in keeping with the derivative meaning of the word Asrava, and throughout Jaina literature the word Asrava is used in this sense. We should mention in this connection that this use of the word Asrava, in its original and derivative sense, has been supposed to support the view that Jainism was prevalent before Buddhism. “We meet with many terms which are used alike by the Jains and the Buddhists. Among them there is one which the Buddhists must have borrowed from the Jains. The term Asrava, in Pali Asava is, according to the Buddhists, synonymous with Klesa, and it means human passoin, sin, corruption, derravity. Asrava, ctymologically, meant 'flowing in or influx, and it was difficult to imagine why the Buddhists should have chosen just that word to denote sin, corruption, depravity. Even if taken in a metaphorical sense, it is not easy to see how, from the Buddhist point of view, it could come to express the idea of depravity and sin, for it might be asked what is to flow in and where is it to flow in ? But with the Jains, Asrava retained its etymological meaning and it adequately expressed the idea denoted by the term Asrava, for according to Jain philosophy Asrava meant the influx of matter into the soul. Hence the term Asrava had its literal meaning, for there really was something flowning in, and the result of it was defilement or deprayity. It is therefore easily imaginable that, in common parlance, Asrava should have got the meaning defilement or depravity, irrespective of the etymology, and this was just what happened to the word Asrava before it was received into Buddhist terminology. But the word never have been used in its derivative meaning (sin), if it had not before been used in its literal meaning. And since the Jainas used the word in its original i. e. literal or etymological meaning, those used it in the derived meaning must have adopted it from the Jains. Thus the use of the word Asrava by the Buddhists is a proof of their posteriority with regard to the Jains."
Umasvami says that Asrava results from the actions of the body and the mind and also from speech. Svami Kartikeya says that Asravas are certain movements of Jiva resulting from actions of speech and those of the mind and the body, either accompanied by or beleft of Moha Karina. As water enters a pond through various channels, so Karmas