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INTRODUCTION
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by W. J. Johnson as “internalization”. 164 Apart from threatening "the ethical norm of lay community”, Johnson argues, internal aspects of conduct also jeopardize the “ascetic practice, and thereby the entire structure of Jaina religious and social identity". 165 This allegation has no basis whatsoever because Kundakunda truly places the moral and spiritual conduct of both householders and ascetics on the solid foundations of a rational and balanced approach of external selfrestraint and internal self-discipline or morality and spirituality.
One of the earliest codes of moral conduct for the householders (Ratnakarnda Shravkachara, RKS), written by Samantabhadra in the second century A.D., begins the chapter “Necessity for the Adoption of Enlightened Conduct," by stating that “sadhu [one can translate it as the noble or enlightened person or samana of PS) starts to practice the rules of moral conduct by getting rid of attachment and aversion" (RKS 47). “As a result of renunciation of attachment and aversion, one (necessarily] abstains from violence (himsa), etc. sins” (RKS 48). Renunciation is an attitude of mind that is manifested through word and deed; it is an ideal to be attained and it is possible only by cultivating detachment.
Johnson blames Kundakunda for his doctrine of upayoga (conscious attentiveness), his “internalization of karmic bondage and his concept of himsa (violence), etc. However, Paul Dundas, the reviewer of his book Harmless Souls, maintains that Kundakunda's emphasis on inner aspects or “interiorisation of the various components of Jaina practice and the concomitant attempt to move the ascetic's ultimate concern away from his relationship with the external world toward his inner being” makes him a “reformer”, 166 who is “consciously reacting against excessive formalization, the mechanistic pursuit of physical austerity”. 167 Thus, "external, ascetic practice” which had become “meaningless” and “without spiritual significance”, Dundas stresses, “had to be reinterpreted by Kundakunda”. Kundakunda was well aware that although the “inner state has precedence and conditions the outer”, external moral conduct of vows (vrata), self-regulation (samiti), etc. (vyavahara charitra) has its importance and value. The moral rules of conduct are the “objective correlative” of the subjective state or attitude.168 Internal purification in the sense of subsidence of the passions is the necessary concomitant (avinabhava) (PS 216 AC) of external moral conduct of non-violence, etc.
