Jain Journal 1970 07

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 45

LÉ. E.Y., 1970
Illumination is always friendly with the force. Thus consciousness here bifurcates into knowledge and will. Both are its constituents. The term Saccidānanda, in this way, connotes the existence by sat, the consciousness by cit, in which the knowledge, the intuition and the force are subsumed, and the bliss by ānanda. This connotation of the term fully corroborates with the Jaina quarternary of infinite potentialities (ananta catuştaya) of the kevala-jñāna i.e. infinite knowledge, intuition, power, which are absorbed in the wide connotation of the term consciousness (cit) used by Sri Aurobindo in the term Saccidānanda, and infinite bliss, that has been included equally in both the expressions. These four infinite potentialities characterize the being of kevala-jñāna as a concrete reality.79 Thence the reality of kevala-jñāna implies the concrete existence (satta), which corroborates with the first constituent of Saccidānanda, i.e. Sat. We, nevertheless, find that the Saccidananda descended at the level of Super-Mind, as conceived by Sri Aurobindo is a term fully identical with the kevala-jñāna of Jainism.
Now comparing the concept of kevala-jñāna with that of the nirrāņa of Buddhism, we find a little difference between the two. The mirvāṇa according to Buddhism, consists in the total extinction of pain caused by passions, aversions, etc., denying every sort of mental category herein. "Whatever, your reverence ! is the extinction of passions, of aversions, of confusion, this is called nirvāņa.” (Samyukta Nikāya, LY, 251, Horner's trans.)80 Thus Buddhism emphasizes upon the reality of metaphysical unity in nirvāņa duly separated from the body. Again in the words of the Buddha; “A released person, ... released from what is called body, ... is profound, immeasurable, hard to fathom, and like the great ocean.” (Early Buddhist Scriptures, p. 196):81 In this way the Buddha solved the problem of pain by describing the non-description of the real in the state of nirvāṇa through negative predications of the intellect. On account of this negativity of expression a charge of being a nihilist has been brought against the Buddha, for which he retorts, “... some ascetics and Brahmins accuse me wrongly baselessly, falsely and groundlessly, saying that ascetic Gotama is a nihilist, and preaches the annihilation, destruction and non-existence of an existent being. That is what I am not and I do not affirm. Both previously and now I preach pain and the cessation of pain.” (Majjhima Nikāya, 1-135. Thomas' trans.)82 It clearly shows the nature of nirvāņa,
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Nsr., 176. S.B.S., p. 61. Ibid., p. 70. Ibid., 71, 72.