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INTRODUCTORY REMARKS BY F.W. THOMAS
205
of scripture...
There is nothing in Kundakunda's doctrine which did not pre-exist in the actual Jaina canon. As we know from the inscriptions published by Buehler (Epigraphia Indica, I, pp. 371 sqq., II, pp. 195 sqq.), the organization of the Jaina community was in the first century A. D. in full maturity, and the several orthodoxies will have been elaborately systematized. Kundakunda was posterior to this; and in regard to his works the only question concerns the emphasis which he lays upon particular doctrines. This also can be considered only in relation to the present text, the Pravachana-sara, since, as we have seen, the several writings are concerned with most departments of Jaina doctrine and religious life.
Of the more general logico-epistemological doctrines the syad-vada, or anekanta view, is everywhere affirmed, and in II.22-23, the nayas and the accompanying sapta-bhang are clearly expounded. Allied to this doctrine, which regards the truth of all true statements as relative to a context or an 'aspect,' is the conception of substance elaborated in the text (II.1, sqq.). A substance is an universal, identical with the existence of the thing, and embracing the thing and its qualities (guna), and its states or modifications (paryaya) and their qualities. The nature of a substance is its evolution as a single principle in states composed of the three ‘moments' of origiñation (utpada, sambhava), persistence (dhrauvya, sthiti), and annihilation (vyaya, nasha). While these ‘moments' are logically and epistemologically antithetic, their real status is an inseparable unity, the substance (II. 3-8). In this connection (II.1) appears the distinction between 'lengthwise' (ayata, urdhva) and 'crosswise' (vistara, tiryak) generality (samanya), the former being the identity of successive states of a thing, the 'concrete universal,' while the latter is community of property in separate things.
The substance to which this conception is most prominently applied is the self (atman), which is identified with knowledge (1.27 sqq). The self is a generality, embracing all its particular states, whereof it is also the creator (kartr, II. 92-94). In its perfect condition (kevala) it is omniscience and truth and identical with the Jaina faith (samaya) itself (1.8, 92). Essentially it never loses this condition, and no other action is performed by it (II. 92-93). All other states or acts attributed to it are due to matter (karma or pudgala) wherewith it is associated. From this association results the condition of jiva, or soul, which is
