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Kundakunda: The Pravacanasāra 195 sāmāyika leads to parama-samādhi. Indeed, that they are perceived as virtually synonymous may be inferred from the fact that, barring the first two gāthās (122 and 123) and the last (133), the whole of this 'parama-samādhi' section is devoted to characterising sāmāyika. In selective summary, all external tapas and study is useless to one devoid of equanimity (124); but an all-embracing attitude of nonattachment, of sama (126), towards all things brings one close to the ātman (127) and constitutes sāmāyika. In other words, it is not so much a condition resulting from realisation of the self (of its true nature), but a means to engendering that realisation. And it is through such realisation, brought about by meditation on the true nature of the self (= sāmāyika [123]), that parama-samādhi results. Pure self-awareness or self-knowledge is inextricable from sāmāyika, and it is for this, as we shall see, that Kundakunda's ideal ascetic is striving.
It is clearly with definitions such as these in mind that P.S. Jaini refers to sāmāyika as meaning both 'attaining equanimity' and 'fusion with the true self, or as 'becoming fixed in jñāna-cetanā, pure self-awareness'.36 This, as Jaini further remarks, amounts to a 'progressive detachment of one's consciousness from all external objects';37 yet, rather than being mindless, such an attitude - as we shall see - leads, according to Kundakunda, to nothing less than omniscience.
Briefly, we have considered the shift in meaning of 'sāmāyika' - from being a synonym for the total physical restraint of the mahāvrata, via internalised restraint, to an attitude of mind, or development of consciousness through meditation, which leads to pure self-awareness. By doing so, we have charted a line of development through which the ascetic (especially, but not exclusively) has acquired a greater and greater autonomy of means vis à vis his personal liberation.
36 JPP p. 221.
37 Ibid.
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