Food And Freedom

Author(s): Paul Dundas
Publisher: Paul Dundas

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Food and Freedom
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desire for sexual relations. Contrary to the Svetāmbara viewpoint, it must disappear when its opposite is meditated upon; just as lust for women disappears when one emerges from meditation, so does hunger. Once again, lack of delusion can be seen as the crucial factor: hunger and lack of delusion in the same person are as impossible as heat and cold together. 146 Even if it be allowed that hunger does not involve desire, it still involves unhappiness or discomfort (duḥkha) which is impossible in the kevalin who is characterised by infinite bliss (anantasukha); bliss and unhappiness cannot co-exist, for the former dispels the latter as fire does cold. 147 Śākațāyana's assertion that the Digambara position entails a situation wherein a person of little knowledge such as a child would be very hungry and vice versa is futile because knowledge characterised by bliss is something only the kevalin can have. 148 There is no point in the Svetāmbaras maintaining that omniscience is not at variance with hunger because it is ultimately beyond the senses, since it would therefore be impossible to say anything sensible about it or understand how it is capable of witnessing anything. The kevalin does not experience hunger precisely because he is omniscient; his powers would lose their efficacy were he to need food, just as ordinary people experience a diminution of their physical powers when affected by hunger. 149
Prabhācandra then attempts to refute other Svetāmbara contentions. The eleven parīşahas which the Svetāmbaras claim afflict the kevalin because of his feeling-producing karma can be rejected on etymological grounds, and also because the kevalin would have to fall prey to illness; but gods have feelingproducing karma and do not fall ill. 150 The Svetāmbara assertion that, if eating were to be regarded as a fault (doşa), then so should activities like speaking is incorrect for two reasons: the kevalin's obligation to speak is a result of name-karma, and speech, unlike hunger, is not found in the traditional list of eighteen faults.151 It is wrong to compare the operation of clairvoyance (avadhi) with omniscience, for while clairvoyance may function perfectly well when applied to external objects which are its proper sphere, there arises interference when it is applied at the same time as eating; this is completely different from kevala knowledge which functions without any interruption. 152 Finally, the Svetāmbara assertion that matijñāna, the inferior kind of knowledge, would not arise in the kevalin even though he were to have contact with the objects of the senses is inappropriate, for if the relationship between object and perceiver does not give rise to matijñāna, then the sphere of operation of that form of knowledge is completely removed. 153
According to the Digambara, then, there is no reason why the kevalin should eat. He does not need to increase his size because this occurs through the continual influx of matter. He certainly does not eat to maintain his knowledge because he has destroyed the harming karma which veils knowledge (jñānāvaraṇīya). He does not need to put an end to the pangs of hunger because a