________________
342
THE ESSENCE OF JAINA SCRIPTURES
infatuation and hindrance of the energy of knowledge, and because he has no immediate knowledge and no well-defined object,- he is desirous, curious and in doubt. But the revered Omniscient does not feel desire, curiosity or doubt, because he has eradicated all longings, while there exists for him no infatuation, or hindrances to the energy of knowledge, inasmuch as he has destroyed the dense destructive karman, and because the truth of all existences is immediately perceptible to him and the limit of the knowbale attained. How then can there be to him an object (artha) of desire, curiosity or doubt? In these circumstances what does he contemplate?
Now he propunds the answer: the possessor of complete knowledge, who has attained (read upalabdha-shuddhatma) the pure seif, contemplates this:
11.106. Set free from all afflictions and hindrances, rich with complete happiness and knowledge in all his faculties, elevated above the sense-organs, he without sense-activities (aksha) contemplates supreme happiness. (198)
This self, as soon as-in consequence of the absence of senseactivities, which are abodes of hindrance to innate happiness and knowledge and abodes of such happiness and knowledge as do not extend in all directions and do not comprise the whole soul-it is itself, without sense-organs, immediately, being elevated above others and the sense-organs, it becomes free from all afflictions, because it has untroubled innate happiness and knowledge, and rich with complete happiness and knowledge in all its faculties, because it is full of such happiness and knowledge as extend in all directions and comprise the whole soul. And in this state, though every desire, wish for knowledge and doubt are absent, it contemplates the highest happiness, unprecedented and characterized as absence of perturbation: that is to say, it abides as simply a deeply attentive consciousness, accompanied by absence of perturbation. And such a state is, in fact, attainment of perfection, whose essence is innate knowledge and bliss.
Now he determines that this itself is the path of liberation, characterized as attainment of the pure self:
11.107. Thus, my homage to those, who following the path [of liberation) have attained the state of the Jinas, "12 the best of Jinas, 113 the shramanas, and liberated souls (siddhas). And homage to that path of nirvana (199)
