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Kundakunda: The Pravacanasāra 229 All this points to the vulnerability of ascetic territory to invasion by the laity once practice has been largely internalised. The upayoga doctrine, with its corollary of internal cultivation, carries within itself the possibility that the condition of suddha-upayoga, and thus of liberation, may be reached by inner development alone. In other words, the attainment of the soteriological goal does not logically entail becoming a śramaņa. Indeed, at the end of the Pravacanasāra, in gāthā 3:74, there is what looks like a re-definition of 'śramana' in terms which would not necessarily exclude the laity. Gāthā 3:74 reads:
He, who is pure, is said to be a śramaņa; to the pure one belong faith and knowledge; the pure one attains liberation; he alone is a siddha: my salutation to him. 138
In other words - although perhaps no Jaina would want to put it as bluntly as this -, if you fulfil these criteria through inner-discipline, you are a 'śramaņa' regardless of your external, social status.
(Tātparyavrtti) on this gāthā gives a second interpretation of the Prākrit sāgāro nägāro as sāgārānāgāraḥ, 'while he is a householder or an ascetic', as an alternative to the first interpretation, viz. sākārānākāraḥ, 'with formed or with formless (self-realisation)'. If Jayasena's suggestion were correct, this would mean that meditation on the pure self was considered liberating for both ascetics and laymen. This seems unlikely to be the meaning in the context, but the fact that such a reading could be considered indicates, if nothing else, the status and content of lay religious practice at the time the Tātparyavrtti was composed (second half of the 12th century C.E.? - see Upadhye p. civ).
138 Upadhye's trans., p. 34. The TD comments: 'śramaņa-hood, which is the manifest road to liberation and is characterised as mentalconcentration occupied with a simultaneity of perfect conviction, knowledge and conduct, belongs to the pure alone' - Faddegon's trans., p. 198 of : yattāvat samyagdarśanajñānacāritrayaugapadyapravrttaikāgryalaksanam sākṣān mokşamārgabhūtam śrāmanyam tac ca śuddhasyaiva.
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