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OCTOBER, 1981
To the Jainas, the cycle of time continually revolves through rise and fall. "In Bharata and Airavata there is rise and fall (regeneration and degeneration) during the six periods of the two aeons of regeneration and degeneration."26 Thus, time introduces changes in the existing state of human beings. The ascending (utsarpini) phase and the descending (avasarpini) phase go on revolving each other continuously in succession ; each of these phases in a division of a unit of cosmic time called kalpa, that is to say, the phases joined together constitute a kalpa. The utsarpint phase ushers in a period of gradual evolution and the avasarpini phase brings a period of gradual devolution or deterioration in man, that is to say, in the span of his life, his bodily strength, his nature, his happiness and in the length of the phase itself. Each phase has six divisions e.g. first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth. At the end of the sixth phase, the cycle reverses : conditions in the first three divisions are called bhogabhūmi and those in the rest three divisions are known as karmabhumi. In the bhogabhūmi, man depends on nature, while in the karmabhimi, he depends on his own efforts. The fourth division of each cycle is regarded as the best from the point of human civilization and culture, as this phase sees the birth of Tirthankaras and other great men. We are at present passing through the fifth division of avasarpint, the descending phase of the universal cycle of cosmic time and hence there has been a decline in human innocence, spiritual culture, span of life, happiness and stature.27 These will deteriorate further as the descending phase will move on.
In this connection I may mention that Mr. J. P. Jain in his Religion and Culture of the Jainas (p. 8) has depicted the cycle of time as revolving “pendulum like in half circles one ascending and the other descending from the paradisical to the catastrophical period and back to the former." But the analogy of the pendulum does not, I feel, depict the full import of the cyclical movement of time from one point to another.
Like the cycle of time, man is caught in the vicious and sorrowful tangle of birth, death and rebirth. “The round of rebirth is endless, full of suffering, and of no avail, and of itself it can yield no realease, no divine redeeming grace, the very gods are subject to its deluding spell.”27 Man is entangled in this vicious entanglement because of his asrava (i.e. karmic infllection into his life monad) which he gets because of his four passions (kasäya) viz. wrath, pride, guile and greed which overpower him when he comes in contact with the environment. It is these four passions which are at the 2* Set. S. N., Pujyapada's Sarvarthasiddhi, tr. by Jain, S. A., ch. 3, sl. 27.
bharatairavatayoryrdhihrasosatsamayabhyamutsarpinyavasarpinibhyam. 27 Zimmer, H., Op Cit., p. 227.
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