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Harmless Souls
of liberation is precisely the internal state, then it becomes clear that, in this teaching, the function of external practice is to provide a linga - i.e. evidence or proof of the soteriologically crucial internal condition. 127 That is to say, it is a public demonstration or assurance, chiefly to others but perhaps also to oneself, that one is on the correct road - a visible emblem and reinforcement of Jaina identity.
Nevertheless, from the advanced ascetic's point of view, Kundakunda's stress on the internal makes external conduct This is karmically (i.e. soteriologically) irrelevant. graphically illustrated by Pravacanasara 3:27, which reads:
He whose self is non-desiring, that is asceticism that is what ascetics seek. Other food, obtained as alms, is not desired (not food); so those ascetics are not takers of food. 128
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It seems that there is a pun here on eṣaṇa which can mean either 'desire' or 'alms begged in the correct manner'. The self without desire is foodless, therefore 'other' (i.e. material, actual) food is not food, in the sense that it is not desired (by the desireless self who is the ideal ascetic). In other words, for the true ascetic, external conduct - physical tapas becomes irrelevant: if he is internally pure then what he does physically can have no karmic effects for him. The Tattvadipikā bears this out:
Since in essence he is abstinent from food (anasana) and since the alms are devoid of the [fault of desire (eṣaṇa- doșa)] fault against the eṣaṇa-samiti, the self-controlled in food is visibly actually foodless. Thus: - if a man is at all times conscious only of the self, which is exempt from the taking of material sustenance, his
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127 See above, pp. 160-163, for further comments on the external being an emblem of the internal, ref. TD on Pravac. 3:17.
128 Pravac. 3:27. Cf. Samayasara 405ff. Cf. also Pāli anesanā: 'improper alms begging' ('a wrong going for food' - CPD); e.g. DN III 224.25 - anesanam appaṭirupam āpajjati. The pun that is reflected in my translation is explained in the following paragraph.
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