Book Title: Illuminator of Jaina Tenets
Author(s): Tulsi Acharya
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

View full book text
Previous | Next

Page 172
________________ 134 Illuminator of Jaina Tenets Lustre VII abstinence, (vi) self-restraint unexempted from remissness, (vii) selfrestraint with freedom from remissness, (viii) dissimilar coarse passions, (ix) similar coarse passions, (x) subtle passion (sc. 'flaming up greed), (xi) subsidence of delusion (including even flaming up greed), (xii) extirpation of delusion, (xiii) omniscience with activities, and (xiv) omaiscience with total cessation of activities. (II) rfection or imperfections wever, due to the rise or subsidie faith. The cases of (Note) In this connection, the relationship between faith (darśana) and knowledge (jñāna) deserves special attention. In the Jaina tradition, faith and knowledge are two absolutely different functions of the soul. This is attested by the Jaina doctrine of karman which distinguishes the mohaniya karman from the jhandvaraniya karman. The rightness or wrongness of the faith is determined by the processes of the mohaniya karman, while the processes of the jñānāvaraniya karman are responsible for the perfection or imperfection of the faculty of knowledge. The basic perversity or otherwise of knowledge is, however, due to the rise or subsidence and the like of the mohaniya karman which is a decisive factor for the nature of faith. The cases of ordinary epistemological errors are exclusively due to the function of the jñānāvaraniya karman. The implication is that the subsidence of passions is necessary for giving right direction to the cognitive faculty, which follows from the Jaina view that the subsidence of the anantānubandhi passions is a necessary auxiliary condition of the lucidity of knowledge, leading to basically right cognition of reality, the soul now being released from perverse proclivities and idola. In the light of the intimate influence of right faith on the faculty of cognition, we shall now consider the point of contact between faith and knowledge. Siddhasenagani, 1 after stating the traditional view that faith and knowledge are two absolutely separate properties of the soul refers to an ancient view that the samyagdarśana is a variety of matijñāna in its stage of apāya (perceptual judgement) of the nature of 'belief' or 'conviction'. This is characteristic of the sarāga samyag-darśana where the cognitive faculty retains its opacity which debars the cognition from direct and immediate cognition of the reality. In fact, at the stage of saråga samyaktva, the perceptual judgement is indirect (paroksa) and mediate as distinguished from the cognition that arises when the soul attends vitarăga samyaktva,2 The latter has the nature of the absolute transparence of the soul, on account of the total elimination of the mohaniya karman in its both varieties of darśana-mohaniya and cåritra-mohaniya. The upshot is that the perfection of the cognitive faculty of the soul is dependent on the purification of the faith and the elimination of the passions. In other words, it is not possible to attain perfect knowledge in the absence of the complete eradication of the emotions that distort our conduct and the perversities that pollute our basic attitude and vision. To be precise, rāga and dveşa and also the delusion that lies at their root are to be eradicated totally for perfect cognition of reality. Perfec tion of knowledge without perfection of conduct is neither possible nor conducive to human welfare. In this connection, it may be noted that in Patañjali's philosophy 1 Tattvartha-bhasya-fikā, Vol. I, p. 29 : "matijnanasyaiva rucirūpo yo-'payamsaħ tat samyag-darśanam, jñānādste anyat samyag-darśanam na samasti." 2 Sarvärthasiddhi, 1/2 : tad (samyag-darśanam) dvividham : sasága-vitaräga-visaya bhedat. prasama-samvega-anukampa-astikyadyabhivyakti-laksanam prathamam. ätmavifuddhi-mätram itarat. Also cf Tattvärtha-bhasya-tika, Vol I, p.66. Jain Education International For Personal & Private Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252