Fundamentals Of Jainism

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Veer Nirvan Bharti

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FUNDAMENTALS OF JAINISM
manushya etc), is given by the Siddha Bhagawâns to vary from less than 48 minutes in the human and tiryancha kingdoms to 33 sagaras (oceans)* of years in the highest heaven and the lowest hell. Tho shortest duration of life in hell is 10,000 years in the first hell, and the same is the shortest duration of devaàyuḥ in the lowest heaven. There is no premature death in the celestial or nether regions, though the beings belonging to the human and tiryancha gatis may die before the exhaustion of their ayuḥ karma.
The causes of the principal nama karam prakritis broadly speaking, resolve themselves into two general types the subha (auspicious) and the asubha (inauspicious). Those of the first kind are pure holy thoughts, straightforwardness, honest behaviour, frankness candour, fair-dealing, love of truth, and the like; while those of the second are trickery, dishonesty, perversion of truth, falsehood, cunning keeping false weights and measures, preparing false accounts, making faces minicry, prejudice fanaticism, merriment at the malformation of others, and all other actions of a similar type which imply a distorted frame of body, or mind, or boch.
The causes of the tirthamkara nama karma prakriti, the holiest and most auspicious of all the subha energies of karma, are : 1 perfect faith, 2 control of passions, 3 observance of vows, 4 constant meditation on the tattvas, 5 fear of re-birth (samásra), 6 unstinted charity, 7 performance of austerities, 8 protection of munis (ascetics) engaged in tapa, 9 nursing and otherwise tending sick saints, 10 devotion to the omniscient tirthamkara and reflection of His virtues and attributes, 11-12 reverence for the acharya (Pontiff), the upadhyâya (Teacher or Preceptor), 13, reverence for the Scripturc, 14 due observance of the six essential rules of
of life is the result of forces operating from without. The unconsumed residue of Syuh karma is, in cases of accidental death, dissipated at once.
It is also evident from the nature of the ayuh karma that the idea of a perpetuation of the physical life is a self-contradictory one. The ayuh karma is like a lump of sugar placed in a flowing channel of water, and is bound to be dissolved sooner or later. Nor is it possible to re-inforce a force generated in a past life, for the nucleus of the past is like the effeevescence of aerated water which cannot be augmented by any means.
A very large number.