Book Title: Harmless Soul
Author(s): W J Johnson, Dayanand Bhargav
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

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Page 269
________________ Kundakunda: The Samayasāra 255 the other while they are sheltered under the anekāntvāda umbrella. Both are true from their own particular perspective. There is, therefore, a perspective from which the soul is really bound by karma, for the relation of substance to mode is a real relation. According to the other 'two truths' pattern ('pattern two'), however, the vyavahāra, or conventional view - that the jiva acts and is subject to the fruits of action - is essentially a 'wrong view'. For the niscaya view, which is 'higher' in the sense of representing the complete truth, not just another aspect of it (it portrays reality), states that, by definition, the jīva can have no connection with ajīva. Thus any perceived relation between the two is nothing more than a delusion, the product of ignorance. This second pattern is clearly incompatible with the first, i.e. it is incompatible with anekāntvāda philosophy. Moreover, within it the niscaya view contradicts the vyavahāra view, which is not the case in the first pattern. Thus, from the perspective of pattern one, pattern two is an ekānta heresy - a one-sided view; whereas, from the perspective of pattern two, pattern one is in its entirety a 'lower' or vyavahāra view, unrepresentative of the truth. I am not the first to recognise that the Samayasāra contains a double 'two truths' doctrine. Bansidhar Bhatt has designated every gāthā in the Samayasāra as falling into either a 'mystic' or a 'non-mystic' pattern, the former being attributed by Bhatt to a single individual called 'Kundakunda'.47 However, for reasons which will become clear, I consider this to be too rigid, not to say tendentious, a division of the text. Moreover, Bhatt makes no specific connection between his 'non-mystic pattern (my pattern one) and the anekāntvāda doctrine; and his interpretation of the niscaya view of his 'mystic' pattern (my pattern two) seems to owe more to a wish to claim Kundakunda as a Vedānta metaphysician than to reflect the actual content of the text. I shall, therefore, restrict myself to outlining the 47 Bhatt 1974, pp. 279-291. Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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