Book Title: ISJS Jainism Study Notes E5 Vol 02
Author(s): International School for Jain Studies
Publisher: International School for Jain Studies
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is known as granthi or the Gordian knot of intense attachment and repulsion. If the impulse is strong enough to cut the knot, the soul is successful in the struggle and ought to be emancipated sooner or later within a limited time. The struggle consists in the twofold process known as apūrvakarana and anivettakarana.
By the yathā-pravittakarana the soul is confronted with the concentrated force of the passions, and the other two karanas enable the soul to overpower and transcend the force. The force of the passions was there from all eternity. But it is only on some occasions that the soul is feelingly conscious of this force. Such consciousness means coming face to face with the knot (granthi). This consciousness is the work of the process called yathāpravíttakarana. During this process the soul undergoes progressive purification every instant and binds the karmic matter of appreciably less duration. Further more, there is increase in the intensity of the bondage of auspicious karmas accompanied with the decrease in the intensity of the bondage of inauspicious karmas. And as a result the soul gets an indistinct vision of goal of its tiresome journey. This may be thought as the implication of the conception of granthi-and the soul's coming face to face with it.
Originally the soul lies in a state of spiritual slumber. Gradually it awakens and becomes selfconscious. Moral and spiritual consciousness dawn only when it is sufficiently conscious of and confronted with the force that has eternally been keeping it ensnared and entrapped. But this consciousness alone is not sufficient to enable the soul to overcome the force. A more powerful manifestation of energy is necessary for the purpose. And the soul that lack in this requisite energy fails to fulfill the mission and withdraw before the force. It is only the soul having the requisite energy by way of the two process of apūrvakaraṇa and anivịttikaraņa at the end of which the soul develops such spiritual strength as is destined to gradually develop and lead it to the final emancipation. In the process of apūrvakarana, which like the yathānivrttakarana lasts only for less than forty-eight minutes, antaramuhurta, the soul passes through such states as it never experienced before (apūrva). The soul had considerably reduced the duration and intensity of the karmas in the process of yathānivittakarana, and reduced them still further in the apūrvakarana. The karanas are spiritual impulses that push the soul to fulfill its mission and realize the goal. And this is possible only if the soul can reduce the duration and intensity and also the mass of the karmic matter associated with it. What the soul did automatically without any moral or spiritual efforts until now, it now does consciously with spiritual exertion. During the process of apūrvakarana the soul undergoes such purification, as has colossal effect on the duration
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STUDY NOTES version 5.0
