Harmless Soul

Author(s): W J Johnson, Dayanand Bhargav
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Page 66

52 Harmless Souls passion-free activity, which does not (i.e. himsā is only himsā because it has been engendered by passion).
This interpretation is clearly tendentious; the technical meaning of pramāda is 'heedlessness', 'carelessness', or 'negligence', derived from vmad + pra, 'to be intoxicated'. 18 Here, therefore, the use of pramāda is comparable to its use in, for instance, the Yoga Sūtras (for example, at 1:30, where pramāda is included in a list of citta-vikṣepas, 'distractions of the mind-field'). And as we have seen, the stress in the earliest canonical sources is on physical 'carefulness', in contrast to the Buddhist concept of appamāda, which has the connotation of 'mindfulness'.19 In the Sarvārthasiddhi , however, the whole emphasis of himsā is shifted on to the internal state of the agent, i.e. on to passion and its effect on the agent: himsā is always himsā to oneself. This goes much further than a literal reading of the sūtra allows; however, as will be seen later, the space for such an internalised doctrine of bondage is cleared by Umāsvāti in the Tattvārtha Sūtra, if not completely developed there. The Sarvārthasiddhi simply takes Umāsvāti's thought a step further. Mere injury, according to the Sarvārthasiddhi, even killing, does not stain one with the sin of himsā; i.e. it is not himsā as such, and does not bind.
Apparently quoting from Kundakunda's Pravacanasāra, Pūjyapāda (Devanandin), in his commentary on Tattvārtha Sūtra 7:13, affirms that:
When a monk goes on foot with carefulness, sometimes small insects get crushed under his feet and die. Still there is not the
18 Cf. TS 7:4, where the five observances of the vow of ahimsă are all couched in terms of 'carefulness'; and the SS itself (on TS 8:1) defines pramāda as 'misinterpreting' injunctions, and indifference in relation to kriyā (action).
19 See, for instance, the Buddha's last exhortation (Dīgha Nikāya 16): ... appamadena sampadetha - 'strive diligently'; also see Buddhist Dictionary p. 22: 'In the commentaries (appamāda) is often explained as the presence (lit. "non-absence") of mindfulness (satiyā avippavāsa)'.