Food And Freedom

Author(s): Paul Dundas
Publisher: Paul Dundas

Page 10

170
Paul Dundas
purefers the percepe 58 and of the soul
and 'the hindrance Copinse organs and the vario
energy (vīrya) which'
other extreme obstructs the omniscience which belongs to the soul at its purest level; 'that which obscures perception' (darśanāvaraniya) which hinders the perception coming in through the sense organs and the various kinds of knowledge;58 and 'the hindrance' (antarāya) which obstructs the energy (vīrya) which is one of the soul's main characteristics when free from karma. The four non-harming karmas are, as their name suggests, essentially not deleterious to the soul: 'feeling-producing' (vedaniya) which determines whether the soul experiences pleasant or unpleasant things; 'name' (nāman) which defines the nature of the soul's next existence; 'life' (āyus) which establishes how long the next existence will be and family' (gotra) which defines whether the circumstances under which the soul is reborn will be conducive to the spiritual life. Now, as TS 10.1 emphatically describes kevala knowledge as arising from the destruction of the harming karmas alone, 59 it follows that the kevalin is still in possession of feeling-producing karma and as TS 9.11 and 9.16 state that the kevalin experiences eleven afflictions brought about by feeling-producing karma, of which hunger is one, it is thus established that the kevalin experiences hunger and so has to take food.
The history of commentary upon the TS is largely the history of Digambara commentary. Although Svetāmbara commentaries do exist, none of them is remotely as influential as the interpretations of the three great Digambaras: Pujyapāda (6th century AD), Akalanka (8th century AD) who incorporates the bulk of Pujyapāda's commentary, and Vidyānanda (9th century AD) all of whom, using Umāsvāti's aphorisms as a basis, produced sophisticated statements of the Jaina position, valid (with the exception of the three main points of disagreement) as much for Svetāmbaras as Digambaras, and thus established the grounds on which Jainas could engage in debate with their intellectual opponents. Obviously, these commentators had to confront TS 9.11 which states categorically that the kevalin experiences hunger but contradicts the statements of the early Digambara texts that the kevalin is totally beyond worldly pleasure and pain and so does not need to eat. Akalarika's explanation of TS 9.11 which I now give is representative of the standard Digambara view.60
It makes no sense to say that afflictions such as hunger which depend upon feeling-producing karma affect the kevalin for the simple reason that feelingproducing karma no longer has any efficacy, since the necessary concomitant elements which would make it function, that is, the harming karmas, no longer exist. Just as poison, when its destructive power has been removed by spells and medicine, does not kill when used, so feeling-producing karma, although still existing, for the man who has burnt away the fuel of the harming karmas by the fire of his meditation and in whom the four infinite qualities are thus unimpeded, loses the strength of its concomitant elements, the harming karmas, and is thus incapable of bringing about any