Food And Freedom

Author(s): Paul Dundas
Publisher: Paul Dundas

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Food and Freedom
177
for the experience of pleasant feelings of necessity involves the experience of their opposite; the terms serve to define each other. 119 As long as the kevalin has feeling-producing karma, he has no control over the working of his body; but whatever he experiences has no bearing on the status of his knowledge which is beyond the categories of bodily pleasure or pain. 120 Nor can hunger be regarded as impossible in the kevalin on the grounds that it is prompted by desire which is in turn a result of delusion (moha) 21 for delusion can be dispelled by a particular sort of meditation (bhāvanā). 122 In this context the Svetambaras regard meditation as the contemplation of the positive feeling which is the opposite of the negative feeling which one wishes to suppress: if one wishes to quell anger, gentleness should be contemplated. 123 But it is obvious that hunger cannot be suppressed in this fashion, for, while craving for food can doubtless be ended temporarily by the contemplation of fasting, hunger will return as soon as the meditation ceases.124 Also, if meditation could really put an end to hunger, then the canon would not talk so much about begging for alms which takes up time which could be better spent in meditation and study. 125 In reality, the onset of hunger is like the onset of heat and cold, a natural event over which the kevalin has no influence. 126 It is only desire for the food which conquers hunger which can be regarded as delusion, but as the kevalin has got rid of deluding karma, he no longer experiences desire. 127
The Syetambara position, therefore, is that there is nothing about eating and hunger which is fundamentally at variance with the attainment of omniscience. The grounds for this are essentially two-fold. 128 First there are the results of direct sensory perception which tell us that all creatures with physical bodies need food to survive, there being no example of a creature in this world existing without food.129 Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, there is the testimony of scriptural tradition. It is the canon which tells about karma, about the various sorts of bodies and about nourishment; there are specific references within the canon to figures like Mahāvīra eating and, significantly, there is no passage ruling out the taking of food by the kevalin.130 This is unimpeachable evidence, for scripture has been promulgated by the omniscient ones themselves; it deals with matters ultimately beyond the senses131 and any statement or description contained within it is in accordance with reality. 132
Finally, it must be emphasised that the kevalin's taking of food is not solely to support his body for there is a specifically soteriological reason, the kevalin's continued existence serving to bring about not only his own salvation but also that of other beings in the world. Siddhi comes only at the last moment of the fourteenth stage of the path; by eating and thus prolonging his life, the kevalin can, through preaching and example, point the way to others. 133
Although he was not the only Digambara to discuss the nature of the
ge of the path; by eatple, point the way to nature of the