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PATH TO LIBERATION
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bara) obtains 'eternal wisdom, illimitable insight, everlasting happiness and unbounded prowess'. When this absolute knowledge is acquired, Indra, Kubera 1 and other heavenly beings, including the celestial engineer, Vaiśramaņa, raise the Samavasaraņa (or heavenly pavilion) where the twelve conferences meet to hear eternal wisdom from the Kevali. After prayers have been offered, the Kevalī goes about preaching truth, until, when the day of deliverance approaches, he takes to the third part of pure contemplation (Sukladhyāna). Here the soul reaches every part of the universe and is yet contained within the body, though its only connexion with it now is residence. The last part of contemplation follows when the fourteenth step is ascended, and the body disappears like burnt camphor. This is Nirvāna.2
Before proceeding, however, to discuss the fourteenth step, we may quote the famous śloka that describes the pomp of a Tirthankara :
The tree of Asoka, the shower of celestial flowers, the singing of heavenly songs, the waving of fly whisks, the lion-shaped throne, the shining of the halo, the beating of celestial kettle-drums, the umbrella, all these eight things attend the Tirthankara.'
As we have seen, it is the Tirthankara, the man at this thirteenth stage, that the people worship; for once he passes to the next step, he loses all interest in people, besides parting with his own body. The Siddha alone know exactly where every one is on the heavenward road, but they have lost all interest in the question.
The moment a man reaches the fourteenth stage, Ayogi- xiv. Ayo. kevali guṇasthānaka, all his karma is purged away, and he gikevali
gunasproceeds at once to mokşa as a Siddha (for no one can thầnaka. remain alive on this step). In mokşa there is of course no absorption into the infinite, but the freed soul dwells for ever above the land called Siddhasilā, from whence it returns no more, and this is mokşa.
i Or Kuvera. 2 A. B. Latthe, M.A., An Introduction to Jainism, p. 42.
