________________
Kundakunda: The Pravacanasāra
183
violence and liberation. Feeling with regard to other beings is at best irrelevant in these circumstances. At worst, it agitates and clouds consciousness; thus, once himsā has been internalised as the harm one does to oneself through aśuddhopayoga, i.e. through affective activity of consciousness, compassion, although undoubtedly a lay virtue, becomes just one more means of tying the ascetic to samsara. That is to say, compassion is consciousness directed towards the external world, towards paradravya. Against this there is the antidote of mental stasis or indifference, the purely cognitive, but, especially in Kundakunda, there is also consciousness directed 'inwards', at the ātman: i.e. the means becomes not just non-action (mental and physical) but insight into and realisation of the nature of the atman itself, of its essential isolation from everything else. And it is to this, Kundakunda's mechanism of liberation, that attention must now be turned. 132
132 The fact that logically liberation requires the cessation of all activity and, in the case of extreme internalisation, an undisturbed, pure consciousness, has not always been tempered in Jaina practice by what P.S. Jaini calls 'a real and active concern with the prevention and alleviation of suffering' [JPP p. 313]; nor has the spirit of anekāntavāda always informed and restrained behaviour based on such doctrines. Jaini cites the case of an 18th C. Sthānakavāsi monk [the Sthānakavāsis are themselves an offshoot of the Svetambaras], Bhikhanji, who established a sect, the Terapantha, 'based on the doctrine of total nonassistance to any living being (except mendicants)' [JPP p. 313]. The theoretical basis for this is that, by aiding or 'saving' other creatures, you become responsible for their future violence; moreover, "helpful" behavior almost always involved some interest in the result, hence brought an increase in karmic attachments' [JPP p. 314 fn. 63]. This proved unacceptable to the Jaina community at large, and ensured the isolation of the small group of Terapantha mendicants. However, as Jaini puts it, Bhikhanji exploited 'the doctrinal split inherent in any community that preaches the ideals of total renunciation and mokṣa, on the one hand, and the value of compassionate and charitable behavior (leading to heaven) on the other' [ibid.]. In some ways, the position Kundakunda advocates for those who aspire to liberation foreshadows Bhikhanji's: compassion too, whether actuated in behaviour, or as an attitude of mind, keeps one in bondage and prevents spiritual progress
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
