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LIBERATION AND ITS MEANS ..
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by right understanding should put an end to the accumulated mass of one's past-karmas, this difficulty remains there even on the supposition that an act done by one possessed of right understanding results in no fresh accumulation of karmas." Here Jayanta considers the following four alternative answers while himself lending support to the last one:
(i) A yogin's good past karmas come to an end through yielding him pleasure of all sorts while the evil ones come to an end through the pain suffered by him in the course of penances. "2
(ii) The above view is not tenable because an evil past karma can come to an end only through yielding its own appropriate fruit, not through yielding pain suffered in the course of a penance. So, what happens is that a yogin creates numerous bodies for himself equipping them with the manas-s given up by the released souls and lying there defunct, these bodies being an instrument for reaping the fruit of all the past' karmas in due fashion."
(iii) It is no use positing this hypothesis of numerous bodies, the correct position being that right understanding is a fit instrument for putting an end to the past karmas all at once; after all, it is scriptural texts that tell us that a past karma comes to an end through yielding its appropriate fruit and again it is a scriptural text like Gītā that tells us that right understanding burns down all the past karmas.14
. (iv) It is not proper to maintain that right understanding puts an end to all past karmas, the correct position being that after the rise of right understanding a past karma fails to yield fruit just as 'a seed preserved inside granary (or a damaged seed even if properly sown in a field) fails to produce a sprout; the point is that wrong understanding is a necessary accessory for a past karma yielding a fruit just as proper sowing in a field is a necessary accessory for a seed producing a sprout."
Then Jayanta considers the position of an opponent who rejects all the four alternatives set forth above including the last one which Jayanta himself endorses; this opponent's objection against the last alternative is that if in the state of mokșa a past karma exists all right then there is no guarantee that this karma will never come to acquire the needed accessories and hence yield its fruit.' So, his understanding is that a past karma comes to an end only through
