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234 Harmless Souls
In other words, samaya means 'the correct or true definition'. Applying this to the Samayasāra, it quickly becomes clear that there too samaya has the primary or underlying sense of 'true definition'. Thus gāthā 2 of the Samayasāra reads:
Know that the term 'jiva' when it has reference to (right) conduct, faith and knowledge is stringently defined; know that when it has reference to material karma it is loosely defined i.e. it includes that which is essentially alien to it). S
There is an analogous gāthā in the Pañcāstikäya (162):
The jīva is defined by / in its own nature (sahāva / sva-bhāva); when it has inessential (non-defining) qualities for its modes it is alienly (loosely) defined (parasamao / parasmaya) [i.e. it is being 'defined' by what is essentially other than itself]. If one applies the self's own definition one will escape from the bondage of karma.
Returning to the Samayasāra, gāthā 3 reads:
The definition which determines its (the jīva's) unity is universally fine (correct), so talk of bondage when there is only one thing is contradictory.
If what is being referred to here is the astringent definition (sva-samaya) of the self then this gāthā appears to contradict the previous one [2], where three things (cāritra, darśana, and jñāna) are mentioned. However, gāthā 7 resolves the difficulty. There it is stated that:
From the conventional point of view conduct, faith and knowledge are predicated of the knower; but there is neither knowledge,
5 Upadhye (p. xlv) gives sva-samaya as 'the realisation of the self as identical with Right faith, etc.' and para-samaya as identification of the self 'with material karmas'; but this is a gloss rather than a translation.
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