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ETHICAL DOCTRINES IN JAINISM
self, just as the lamp is supplied with oil for seeing the objects clearly. Thus the ascetics are as good as going without food, even if they accept faultless food, since thereby they do not fall a victim to the thraldom of Karman.
4) ĀDĀNA-NIKȘEPAŅA-SAMITI: The Ādāna-Nikṣepaņa-samiti implies the persistence of careful mental state in lifting and putting articles necessary for religious life. It means wiping a thing and its place after inspecting them with eyes before lifting and putting it.
5) PRATISTHĀPANĀ-SAMITI: The Pratisthāpanā-samiti prescribes that the saint should dispose of excrements, urine etc., in a place which is unobjectionable, bereft of living beings, and unfrequented by man.. To be more clear, excrements, urine, saliva, mucus, uncleanliness of the body, offals of food, badly torn clothes, dead body and any other useless things should be left in a place which is burnt, ploughed, used for cremation, unobjected, spacious, devoid of insects and seeds, not covered with grass or leaves, not perforated by holes, situated at a distance, neither frequented nor seen by other people, and having an inanimate surface layer.*
CONTROL OF THE FIVE SENSES: Having discussed the nature of the five great vows and the five-fold carefulness, we now proceed to discuss the implications of the control of the five senses. It is an evident fact that the attachment to senses and sensuous pleasures unquestionably creates enormous difficulties in the spiritual path, hence it needs unsympathetic extirpation. The control of the senses undertaken by the saint is not a new enterprise, since it was to some extent observed by him when he was the observer of partial vows, though unprecedented entrance into higher life brings about more stern forms of accountabilities. Hence the saint completely controls the five senses, namely, the senses of eye, ear, nose, tongue, and touch from their attachment to colour, sound, smell, taste and touch respectively. The ascetic, thus, refuses to be seduced by the pleasantness and unpleasantness of the sensuous objects. He witnesses all the objects of the senses in their metaphysical perspective, and regards them as different forms of Pudgala, which are ontologically foreign to the nature of the real self. Thus he has attained the inner conviction that none of the objects of the five senses is of any benefit
1 Niyaina. 64. Mūlā. 14. 2 Mülā. 319. Uttară 24/14. 3 Niyama. 65. Mūlā. 15, 321, 322. Uttarā. 24/15, 17, 18.
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