________________
The mechanism of bondage according to the
Pravacanasāra
5.1 The mechanism of bondage
The principal passages dealing with the mechanism of bondage in the Pravacanasāra are clustered in a group in Book 2 (c. gāthās 2.77-2.97). The pivotal gāthā here is Pravacanasāra 2.81, where the question is asked, how is it possible for the non-material ātman to be bound by material karman. The text in full reads:
The embodied (mūrta, i.e. material objects), having qualities such as rūpa, etc., is bound by mutual touching; the ātman is quite different from [the opposite of] that, so how can material karman be bound to it?
In many ways this is a crucial question for Jaina dogmatics, and no less so for Kundakunda. It was one which was probably quickly identified by opponents in rival darśanas as a weak point in the Jaina argument; and as we shall see, it may well have been Kundakunda's attempt to solve this specific problem, although perhaps more for 'internal' than 'external reasons, which first put him on the path that ends in the apparently heterodox views of the Samayasāra.
To understand the importance of the problem we must look at the way the argument is developed in the Pravacanasāra in some detail. At 2.77 it is said that molecules (khamdha / skandha), 'capable of becoming karman', coming into 'contact' with, or 'attaining to' a transformation of the jīva, develop into the state of karman (kammabhāva); but it is not by the jīva that those skandha are transformed. In other words, it is neither the jīva nor the skandha which is directly instrumental in the 'creation'
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
