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THEMES OF SOTERIOLOGICAL REFLECTION
overcome death.24 Another verse of this text reads thus: "The sons are no protection, neither father nor the relatives; for one overcome by death, there is no protection among kinsmen."25 Elsewhere the Buddha says that this whole world of beings is being constantly driven away by old age, disease and death. Santideva also draws our pointed attention to the fact of helplessness. "When one is caught up by the envoys of Death, a relative is of no use, a friend is of no use. At that moment, religious merit is the only protection, and that was never honoured by me."27
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II. iii. SAMSARANUPREKṢA
The third theme in our standard list is samsara also called bhava. We have earlier referred to it as 'the miserable course of existence-in-flux'. Two most outstanding features of life in samsära are misery and flux or change. Misery is the opposite of happiness while flux is the opposite of peace. Both misery (duḥkha) and impermanence (anityatva) are undesirable. Existence involving constant misery and constant change is the nature of samsära (samsaraṇam samsarah parivartanam ityarthah). It is a process of continuous becoming (bhava), often referred to as the cycle of transmigration or the whirlpool of metempsychosis. It is a fundamental philosophical doctrine of all systems of ascetic spirituality. The doctrine is inseparably connected with the idea of moral law of retribution known as karma. The course of existence-in-flux offers the field for the process of karmic technology; conversely, the technology of karma flourishes only in the phenomenal realm of samsara. The awareness of the nature and function of samsara is the starting point of that philosophy of renunciation which places supreme value on transcendental goal of Ultimate Release. The beginningless round of repeated births and deaths terminates in Ultimate Release (nirvana, mokṣa, kaivalya). Meditation on samsära is recommended with a view to achieving its termination.
The course of existence-in-flux is made possible by karma; it is the chief cause of misery (karmamayaḥ samsāraḥ samsäranimittakam punarduḥkham.) Different forms
24. Dhammapada, vv. 127-128.
25. Ibid. verse 288.
26. Anguttaranikaya, vol. I (Nalanda edition), p. 143-upaniyati kho ayam, brāhmaṇā, loko jarāya byadhina maraṇena.
27. Bodhicaryavatara, II. 42. See also ibid., II. 45-46.
One can almost endlessly multiply the number of Buddhist sayings on impermanence and helplessness scattered in Pali and Buddhist Sanskrit literature. Space at our disposal does not permit us to cite more parallels here. A N. Upadhye has remarked: "Objectively speaking anitya-a. has a better place in Buddhism than in Jainism, because, according to the latter, it is only the paryayas or modes that are anitya, the substance being nitya." Kärttikeyanuprekṣa, Introduction, p. 41.
28. Prasamaratiprakaraṇa, verse 57.
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