Harmless Soul

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

Page 67

Umāsvāti's Jainism 53 slightest bondage of sin in this case. ['Carefulness' being the opposite of pramāda or 'negligence'.]20
The emphasis here is clearly on the state - what amounts to the mental condition - of 'carefulness', not on the physical injury as such. This is confirmed by Pūjyapāda when he goes on to express the converse argument that a 'mere passionate attitude even without the severance of vitalities constitutes violence'.21
Again the Sarvārthasiddhi quotes a verse that also occurs in the Pravacanasāra which summarises this line of argument:
He who acts with negligence commits injury whether death is caused to organisms or not. And he who proceeds with proper care
20 S.A. Jain's trans., p. 197, of: uccālidamhi pāde iriyāsamidassa niggamatthāne | āvādejja kulimgo marejja tajjogamāsejja ||
nahi tassa tannimitto bamdho suhumovi desido samaye || This is to be found in Jayasena's recension of the Pravacanasāra at 3:17 (1-2), Upadhye's edition (see Appendix 3, Pravacanasāra 3.17b). Given the compilatory nature of the Pravacanasāra (see below), it cannot be certain that such quotations originate there. The attribution is made by P.S. Shastry (ed. SS, Banaras 1955), but it is possible, even likely, that Pūjyapāda and Kundakunda are quoting from a common source. Indeed, Upadhye in his translation of Pravacanasāra 3;17 (1-2) assumes that this is a quotation without identifying the source. In fact, Upadhye speculates that these are very old traditional gāthās, belonging to both Digambaras and Svetāmbaras (1935, p. liiiff.). Moreover, the fact that Pūjyapāda also quotes here a verse which appears as Pravacanasāra 3:16 in Amrtacandra's recension (see below), indicates that he had access either to an earlier version of the Pravacanasāra than Amstacandra's (the earliest we possess), i.e. the one from which Jayasena drew as well, or that he is quoting directly from Kundakunda's source. (See also Viy. XVIII.7.1, where the same idea is presented in a more technical way.) It is therefore not desirable to draw conclusions about the dating of the Pravacanasāra from this coincidence.
21 S.A. Jain's trans., p. 197, of: prāņavyaparopaņābhāve 'pi pramattayogamātrād eva himsesyate - SS on TS 7:13.