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THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE JAINAS.
we have" those from which Karmas low are called Asravas." These lefinitions are in keepmg with the clerivative meaning of the word Asrava, and throughout Jaina literature the worl Asrava is used in this sense. We should inention in this connection that this izse of the worl Asrara, in its original and lerivative sense, has been supposed to support the view that Jainisin was prevalent before Buddhism. "We meet with many terms which are nseil alike by the Jainas and the Buddhists Among them there is one which the Buddhists must have borrowed from the Jainas. The term Asrava, in Pali Asava, is, according to the Buddhists, synonymous with Klesa, and it means human passion, sin, corruption, depravity. Asrara, etymologically, meant 'Howing in' or 'influx,' and it was difficult to imaging why the Buddhists should have chosen just that worl to denote sin, corruption, leprarity. 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 iclea of depravity and sin, for it might be askell That is to flow in and where is it to flow in? But with the Jainas, Asrava retained its firmalogcal meaning and it adequately expisssed the idea denoted by the term Åsrava, for, according to Jaina philosophy, Asrava meant the influx of matter into the soul. Hence the term Asrava hart its literal meaning, for there really was something fowing in, and the result of it was defilement or depravity. It is therefore easily imaginable that, in common parlance, Asrava should have got the meaning defilement or lepravity, irrespective of the etymology; and this was just what happened to the word Asrava before it was received into Buddhist terminology. But the word could 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 who used it in the derived meaning must have adopted it from the Jainas. Thus the use of the word Asrava by the Buddhists is a proof of their posteriority with regard to the Jainas.”+
Umâsvâmi says that Åsrava results from the actions of the
# "fafafan sifat alat Oprea PTT:1”
[Abhayadera's Commentary on Prasna Vyakaraṇa). † Presidential address by H. Jacobi, delivered at Benares, on the 29th Decem
ber, 1913
