Book Title: Gandharavada
Author(s): Esther A Solomon
Publisher: Gujarat Vidyasabha

Previous | Next

Page 254
________________ 165 eternal place. But this is not what we find. Hence 'fall because of location' is definitely inconclusive (1858). Someone may have a doubt that a siddha is emancipated from the worldly existence, and siddhas have thus a beginning. as far as their emancipated state of existence is concerned; hence there must have been someone who was the first to become siddha. But this is not true; there is no such rule that whatever has a beginning, is an effect, must have someone entity which is the first of its kind. Day and night have a beginning; but Time is infinite; so there is nothing like 'first night' or 'first day'; all bodies have a beginning, yet there is no 'first body'. Similarly there is no one like the first siddha' (1859). There is likely to be still another doubt. Souls have continued to become siddha from time beginningless and the abode of the siddbas (siddhi-kşetra) is finite in dimension; how possibly could this infinite number of siddhas be accommodated in this limited space ? There should be no difficulty here since the souls are not corporeal. Every thing becomes the object of the pure and perfect knowledge and intuition (kevalajñana-darśana) of siddhas; that is to say, as an infinite number of jñānas and darśanas can stay in one limited thing; glances of thousands of spectators can be accomodated in one dancing girl; so there should be no dilliculty in an infinite number of incorporeal siddhas being accomodated in a place of finite dimensions. Even a number of corporeal things like the light of a lamp and so on can stay in one small place, then what to say of incorporeal things (1860). Lord Mahāvīra explained in the beginning the concept of bondage-emancipation by means of reasoning. Then he explained it with the help of Vedic passages. Mandika had not understood the meaning of such Vedic passages as 'Na ha vai saśarīrasya priyā priyayor apa hatir asti, aśarīram vā vasantam priyā priye na sprsatah; and hence his doubt as regards bondageemancipation. But there is no ground for this doubt. It is obvious that the embodied and the disembodied states refer to bondage and emancipation. The embodied state means bondage Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400