Facets of Jaina Religiousness in Comparative Light

Author(s): L M Joshi
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 14

THEMES OF SOTERIOLOGICAL REFLECTION
I. iii. MEANING OF ANUPREKSĀ
There is no doubt that anuprekşā is one of those basic terms which bring us directly to the core of the Jaina form of ascetic spirituality. The texts reveal nearly half a dozen variant spellings of this term in Prakrit, viz. anuppehä, anupehā, aņuvehā, aņuppekkhā, anupekkhā, and anuvekkha. In our treatment below we will use its Sanskrit form, anuprekşā.
In earlier Jaina texts anuprekşā is connected with both scriptural study and soteriological reflection. Scriptural study (svādhyāya) has always formed an important part of religious and philosophical training in India. Scriptural study has indeed been accepted as an aid to growth in religiousness. In canonical scheme anuprekšā is one of the five kinds of scriptural study, viz. vācanā, parip rcchanā, paråvartană, anuprekşā, dharmakathā.13 This fivefold method of scriptural study is mentioned in the Tattvārthasūtra with a difference in order and words.14 The Uttarādhyayanasūtra passage on anuprekşā has been translated by Hermann Jacobi in the following words : “By pondering (on what he has learned) he loosens the firm hold which the seven kinds of karman, except the żyushka (have upon the soul); he shortens their duration when it was to be a long one; he mitigates their power when it was intense; (he reduces their sphere of action when it was a wide one); he may either acquire äyushka-karman or not, but he no more accumlates karman which produces unpleasant feelings, and he quickly crosses the very large forest of the fourfold samsāra, which is without beginning and.
end."15
It is clear from this passage that even as a form of scriptural study anuprekşā has a soteriological function to perform. He who practices anuprek şā "quickly crosses the very large forest of the fourfold samsāra, which is without beginning and end.”
Pujyapāda and Akalanka seem to stress the svādhyāya aspect of anuprekşā. They explain it as "calling to mind the meaning of what is learnt" (adhigatārthasya manasā abhyāso anuprekşā).18
The important functional meaning of anuprekşā, as a technique of arresting influx of defiling tendencies into the self, is also found in the Tattvārthasūtra. It enumerates six methods of effecting cessation of influx, viz. gupti, samiti, dharma, anuprekşā, parişahaja ya and cāritra, protection, carefulness, religiousness, meditation, victory by patient endurance, and good conduct. 17 Here anuprek şā is a kind of mental effort to
13. Uttaradhyayanasūtra, XXIX. 19-23. 14. Tattvarthas ütra, IX. 25-vācana, prcchana, anuprekşā, āmnāya, dharmopadeśa. 15. Jaina Sūtras, Part II, p. 165. 16. Sarvarthasiddhi on IX. 25, p. 339; Tattvārthavārttika on IX. 25, p. 624. 17. Tattvarthasūtra, 1X. 2.