Facets of Jaina Religiousness in Comparative Light

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

Page 24

THEMES OF SOTERIOLOGICAL REFLECTION
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(1) they promote development of the spirit of renunciation (vairāgya); (2) they increase desire for ultimate Release (mok şa); (3) they strengthen technique of arresting the influx of karma (samvara); (4) they constitute essential aids to virtuous and righteous form of meditation (dharmya-dhyāna), and (5) they are a means of attaining ultimate Release (mokşa) of the self (ātma) from conditioned existence. The ascetic sages desirous of release (mumuk şubhiḥ) have praised these soteriological reflections because they are like the flight of steps to climb up the palace of Release.53 Svāmī Kārttikeya eulogizes religious significance of anuprekşās when he says that "he who reads the account (of twelve themes of soteriological reflection), listens to them, and cultivates them, attains eternal bliss."54
The great soteriological purpose of bhāvanās is declared already in the sūtrakrtanga. "Towards your fellow-creatures be not hostile ; that is the Law of him who is rich in control: he who is rich in control renounces everything, and in this (world meditates on the) reflections on life. He whose soul is purified by meditating on those reflections is compared to a ship in water; like a ship reaching the shore he gets beyond misery.”55 Summing up the importance and purpose of anuprekşās K.K. Handiqui has observed that “The Anuprekṣās are thus viewed from different standpoints but their wider aspect can hardly be mistaken. They are in the nature of reflections on the fundamental facts of life, and remind the devotee of the teachings of the Master on the subject of rebirth, karma and its destruction, equanimity and self-control, the glory of the Law and the final goal. They are no doubt designed to develop contemplative faculty of yogin, and may be called the starting point of dhyāna. But they have also a great moral significance inasmuch as they are meant to develop purity of thoughts and sincerity in the practice of religion."56
53. Jhanarnava, II. 7. 54. Karttikeyanupreksa, verse 490. 55. Hermann Jacobi's translation, Jaina Sūtras, Part II, pp. 329-330. The original may be seen in the
Suyaga lo (Ladnun edition), I, XV. 4-5, p. 340. 56. Yašastilaka and Indian Culture, p. 293.