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156 Harmless Souls deny that Kundakunda's idea of moha ultimately derives from and sometimes reverts to the classical position, I would point to its role in a new formulation, its association with the upayoga doctrine, and especially its connection with realisation (jñāna) and not tapas, as indicators that the emphasis in the Pravacanasāra is on an effectively dematerialised instrument of bondage. The complexity of the orthodox classification of (physical) mohaniya-karman has thus been largely by-passed simply because an understanding of it is essentially irrelevant to the proposed means of liberation (jñāna through dhyāna); whereas, for reasons outlined above, the orthodox classification points towards samvara and nirjarā through tapas as the means to liberation.
5.3 Himsā in the Pravacanasāra
i) The role of himsā in the Pravacanasāra With the stress on moha, its corollaries' (avidyā and aśuddhopayoga) and antidotes (jñāna through meditation on the essential purity of the self, and suddhopayoga) the characteristic Jaina ptoccupation with the ethical imperative of ahimsā would appear, in the Pravacanasāra, to have been moved to the periphery of soteriological concern. How then does Kundakunda view himsā, and what, according to him, is the relation of the latter to, for instance, moha?
In Book 3 of the Pravacanasāra we find a group of gāthās dealing with himsā which, taken without the commentary, seem to have only a tenuous connection with the kind of doctrines expounded in the first two books. These verses certainly look more traditional and more orthodox; they are closer in feeling to the Tattvārtha Sūtra than to the Samayasāra. Nevertheless, they merit more
or shows attachment or aversion towards them, necessarily incurs bondage.
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