Harmless Soul

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

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Umāsvāti's Jainism those which lead to an influx of short-term karma, which is not. Such activities are all related directly to himsā and non-himsā, and especially to physical activity. That is to say, the behaviour of the ascetic is being distinguished absolutely from that of the non-ascetic or lay-person in terms of soteriological consequences.50
There are, therefore, two types of asrava: that which occurs to jivas in lay bodies, and that which occurs to those in the bodies of monks. The difference arises from the difference in behaviour between ascetics and others. Similarly, iryāpatha and sāmparāyika are, strictly speaking, two different quantities of karma, one accrued by mendicants and the other by householders. But the distinction is considered to be so fundamental that they become in effect two different types: short-term, and that which leads to a further rebirth. And in these soteriological terms, the division is absolute.
In this way iryāpatha acquires the general meaning of 'short-term karma'. At a later stage, it is given a specific technical definition, by Umāsvāti, as that influx of karma which is short-term because it is free from passion; it is therefore no longer directly linked to the amount of (physical) himsă caused, but to internal states, motivation, etc. In other words, Umāsväti's definition of himsā - 'Injury is the destruction of life out of passion'51 - bears witness to the development of a less exclusive, i.e. more laycompatible ethic in the intervening period.52 If this modei is correct, then the concept of iryapatha karma developed in the period when asrava and the resulting bondage of the jiva by karmic matter were still seen as the results of physical activity alone. In that case the instrumentality of kaṣāya would be a later accretion, based upon the
50
51
See the passages quoted from the Viy., etc., p. 40ff., above. pramattayogāt prāṇavyaparopaṇam himsā - TS 7:13 (8) and
SS.
52 Cf. SS on TS 7:22, where TS 7:13 is quoted as a justification of lay sallekhana.