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Kundakunda: The Samayasāra 245 Munis absorbed in / adopting the niscaya view attain nirvāņa.
The idea of a graduated progression from the vyavahāra to the niścaya viewpoint does not arise here. Liberation is achieved only by rejection of the former and absorption in the latter (i.e. the self). Amộtacandra commments:
The niscaya view refers to the self, the vyavahāra view refers to the other (the not-self]. The conventional view is prohibited by the niścaya view, which blocks for the one who desires liberation all intention which relates to anything other than the self as being a cause of bondage, and because for him intention is no different from being dependent on something other than the self. It is to be rejected because only those are liberated who resort to the niścaya view, which refers to the self, and because it is the abhavya - one who is definitively incapable of being liberated - who resorts to the vyavahāra view which refers to the other.27
So even if the vyavahāra viewpoint were to be considered a necessary first position, there is clearly no natural progression from there to the liberating niscaya view. Indeed, it is difficult to see the vyavahāra view positively at all (i.e. as a ladder or raft to the higher view and liberation) when it is precisely the view held by those who can never achieve liberation, the abhavya souls.28 In other words, the vyavahāra view is essentially a 'wrongview'. (But note that it is not the view itself which prevents the abhavya souls from ever being liberated. Rather that view is their characteristic view; they are incapable of
27 ātmāśrito niscayanayah parāśrito vyavahāranayaḥ | tatraivam niścayanayena parāśritam samastam adhyavasānam bandhahetutvena mumuksoḥ pratiședhayatā vyavahāranaya eva kila pratișiddhaḥ, tasyāpi parāśritatvāvišeșāt| pratiședhya evam cāyam, ātmāśritaniscayanāyaśritānām eva mucyamānatvāt, parāśritavyavahāranayasyaikantenāmucyamānenābhavyenāśriyamānatvāc ca - Ātmakhyāti on Samayasāra 272 (= 296 JGM).
28 On abhavya see JPP p. 140, and P.S. Jaini 1977.
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