Istopadesa The Golden Discourse

Author(s): Vijay K Jain
Publisher: Vikalp

Page 84

Verse 23
अज्ञानोपास्तिरज्ञानं ज्ञानिसमाश्रयः । ददाति यत्तु यस्यास्ति सुप्रसिद्धमिदं वचः ॥
(23)
Devotion to ignorance imparts nescience, and devotion to learning imparts knowledge; it is a well known fact that only that which one possesses can be given to the other.
EXPLANATORY NOTES
Jainism lays great emphasis on the acquisition of right faith to be able to make any progress on the path leading to liberation. When accompanied by wrong faith, knowledge and conduct too get vitiated. Faith and knowledge arise in the soul simultaneously. For instance, when the clouds disappear, both the heat and the light of the sun are manifested simultaneously. Similarly, when right faith is attained by the soul owing to the subsidence, destruction, or destruction-cum-subsidence of faith-deluding karmas, right sensory knowledge and right scriptural knowledge are attained by the soul at the same time by the removal of wrong sensory and wrong scriptural knowledge. It is on the basis of right faith that knowledge acquires the attribute 'right'. Knowing substances, souls and non-souls, as these actually are is right knowledge. The attribute 'right' is intended to ward off uncertainty, doubt and error in knowledge. Right knowledge provides the foundation that is necessary for the conduct to be 'right'.
It is clear that wrong knowledge results due to the soul's association with wrong faith, and right knowledge results from the
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