Harmless Soul

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

Page 85

Umāsvāti's Jainism 71 prescribes care in performing excretory functions. The ajīva adhikarana nisarga is defined by the commentators as 'urging', 'movement', and 'operating!.63 Thus, according to the Sarvārthasiddhi, 'Urging (behaviour) is of three kinds, urging the body, speech and mind to act'.64 It should be noted, however, that this threefold division is not made by Umāsvāti himself, and that nisarga as well as utsarga can have the meaning 'evacuation of excrement'. This may indicate that Umāsvāti's commentators (and possibly Umāsvāti himself) had the samvaradvāra gupti in mind when they defined the ajīva adhikaraṇa nisarga in this way. Gupti is defined (at Tattvārtha Sūtra 9:4) as samyagyoganigrahaḥ, proper control (nigraha) over activity (yoga) - i.e. control over the activities of body, speech, and mind, which would be the antidote to urging the body, speech, and mind to act (the three kinds of nisarga).
The likelihood that nisarga originally referred to evacuation of excrement is strengthened by its incompatibility (as it is defined by the commentators) with the other adhikaraņa-ajīva. For the presence of manas, regarded as denoting the operation of the mind of an individual, introduces the idea of intention, of internal 'action' into a list which refers to the physical manipulation of matter (pudgala).65
It is possible to conclude, therefore, that of Umāsvāti's categories ajīva and jīva adhikaraņa, the former was derived from the original monastic rules concerned with preventing the influx of binding karma, since it is occupied
63 S.A. Jain p.174; J.L. Jaini (1920); Sukhlalji (TS 1974).
64 S.A. Jain's trans. p. 174 of SS on TS 6:9: nisargas trividhaḥ - kāyanisargādhikaraṇam vāg... mano..., etc.
65 Such incompatibility is, of course, reduced if yoga is read in the sense suggested by Dixit (see above) - viz, as doing an act oneself, having it done through one's agent, or allowing it to be done by someone else; but that is not the way the commentators take it.