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Kundakunda: The Pravacanasāra
167
terms of karma theory, as the karmic fruits of some previous action. That kind of explanation, however, does not solve the problem of control. The ascetic develops selfdiscipline precisely in order to have absolute control over his karmic destiny; and absolute control is only possible in isolation from the contingent, material world. Consequently, the earliest Jaina discipline demanded almost superhuman control and concentration, a fact which must have severely limited the number of recruits. To survive, even as a śramana movement, it must sooner or later have been necessary, among other things, for Jainism to hold out the prospect of a sure path towards release, free from chance and accident, the equivalent of the Buddhist bhikkhu's being 'an island to himself.9
90
Kundakunda is at the logical end of this movement towards ever-increasing autonomy. In contrast to the position of the early 'canonical' śramaṇa, the greatest threat to Kundakunda's ascetic comes from within himself. Essentially, this threat amounts to ignorance of his own nature. Once that ignorance is dispelled, then the rest (i.e. proper external action) falls into place. If you have realised your true nature, then karmic bondage is impossible: whatever you do is himsã-free because it is the purified, knowing self that is doing it. No accident is possible where everything is jñāna - defined by Kundakunda as 'self' (Pravacanasara 2:67, etc.). To put it another way, there is no longer any real interaction between the ascetic and the world of matter, since the latter can have no real effect on the former as long as his attitude is correct. The contingency which characterises ordinary life is blocked out, and the ascetic remains safe inside his own consciousness, his own upayoga. Upayoga is the fail-safe mechanism which ensures that the ascetic's salvation is in his own hands, and through it he becomes autonomous.
This divorce of the śramana from the world of matter
90 See Digha-Nikāya II (Mahāparinibbāna-Sutta), quoted by Rahula p. 60.
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