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Kundakunda: The Samayasāra 287
The self which, having restrained itself by itself with regard to both meritorious and demeritorious actions, is fixed in perception and knowledge and is free from desire for other things, which, free from all combination [i.e. free from all attachment to what is not self], meditates on the self through the self and disregards karma and nokarma - (that) sentient being reflects upon the state of oneness [18 Meditating on the self, consisting of perception and knowledge and not consisting of anything else [OR 'not thinking (manāḥ) of anything else'), he very quickly realises the self which is completely free from all karma [189].18
In other words, it is meditation on the pure or unified self which is itself instrumental in realising or attaining that pure self. You know or identify the pure self (conceptually) and then you realise (i.e. attain it) by meditating on it. Moreover, meditation on the self comes to be seen as both the acme and index of right conduct. As two gāthās only found in Jayasena's recension of the Samayasāra put it:
Indeed, meditation should be practised on knowledge, belief (1 perception) and conduct. But these three are the self; therefore practise meditation on the self [JGM 11). The ascetic who is constantly engaged in practising this meditation on the self attains liberation from all suffering quickly [JGM 12].
The term used for 'meditation' here is not dhyāna but bhāvanā. In early Jaina texts bhāvanā is connected with the five mahāvrata. It has a range of meanings, from the underlying mental disposition which leads to the right understanding of the vows, to their specific observance.19
18 On nokarma - quasi-karmic matter which makes up the jīva's bodies, etc. - see Tattvärtha Sūtra 2:10.
19 See Schubring paras. 45,167,171; cf. JPP p. 243, fn. 3, and TS 7:3.
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