Jain Journal 1974 04

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

Page 89

APRIL, 1974
preceded by 12 years of self-mortification of the flesh, 33 which should be the closing act of a monk's career, though it no longer leads to liberation, for Jambusvamin, the disciple of Mahavira's disciple Sudharman, was the last man who reached kevala, or omniscience, and was liberated on his death 34 (64 years after Mahavira's Nirvāṇa); accordingly during the rest of the present Avasarpini period nobody will be born who reaches nirvāṇa in the same existence. Nevertheless these speculations possess a great theoretical interest, because they afford us a deeper insight into the Jaina system.
In this connexion we must notice a doctrine to which the Jainas attach much importance, viz., the doctrine of the 14 guṇasthānas, i.e, the 14 steps which, by a gradual increase of good qualities and decrease of karma, lead from total ignorance and wrong belief to absolute purity of the soul and final liberation.
In the first stage (mithyādṛṣṭi) are all beings from the nigodas upwards to those men who do not know or do not believe in the truths revealed by the Tirthakaras; they are swayed by the two cardinal passions, love and hate (rāga and dveșa), and are completely tied down by karma. In the following stages, as one advances by degrees in true knowledge, in firmness of belief and in the control and repression of passions, different kinds of karma are got rid of and their effects cease, so that the being in question becomes purer and purer in each following stage. In all stages up to the 11th (that of a upaśāntakaṣāyavitarāgachadmastha) a relapse may take place and a man may fall even down to the first stage. But as soon as he has reached the 12th stage, in which the first four kinds of karma are annihilated (that of a kṣinakaṣāyavitarāgachadmastha), he cannot but pass through the last two stages, in which omniscience is reached; in the 13th stage (that of a sayogikevalin) the man still belongs to the world, and may continue in it for a long period; he retains some activities of body, speech, and mind; but, when all his activities cease, he enters on the last stage (that of an ayogikevalin), which leads immediately to liberation, when the last remnant of karma has been annihilated.
A question must now be answered which will present itself to every critical reader, viz., 'Is the karma-theory as explained above an original and integral part of the Jaina system?' Is seems so abstruse and highly artificial that one would readily believe it a later developed metaphysical doctrine which was grafted on an originally religious system based on
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34
See 'Death and Disposal of the Dead' (Jaina), ERE, vol. iv, p. 484. Parisista Parvan, iv, 50 ff.