Jain Journal 2000 07

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

Page 18

JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXV, No. 1 July 2000 gradational and graduational progression in its philosophical investigation.
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Acārya Kundakunda treats this Jaina notion and his exposition predominantly falls in the realm of consciousness of the soul-its plurality, its dimension and its function governed by three important internal operative instruments.
Bandha is considered as the first of the operative mechanisms. The Pravacanasara shows that bondage is resulted in conjunction with bhāva, and this association of the karma particles with the nonmaterial soul sees and knows the karmic stain. In the Niyamasāra, verse 18-kartā bhoktā ātmā pudgalakarmaṇo bhavati vyavahārāt, Acarya Kundakunda explains that the soul from the empirical point of view draws fine karmic matter in consequence of the activities of mind, body and speech and the experiences that result thereof.53 In the Pañcāstikāyasāra, he speaks of bhava, the psychic state soul. The functioning of the soul is therefore reflected by both the external material operative condition and the internal psychic condition. The bhāva being physico-psychical in terms of attachment and aversion, the soul becomes its agent and more influx of karma occurs. However, he points out that the soul is the agent of this operative instrument and is not the agent of pudgala karmas (karmic matter).
Soteriologically upayoga as an instrument (explained in the Pravacanasāra) of the functioning of the soul counts on the consciousness to what happens internally. Darsana and jnana of the soul are shown by Acarya Kundakunda in Pravacanasara and the Samayasara as totally separate from matter. 54 His exposition on the journey of soul and its functional mechanism is thus founded on darsana and jnana; an internal transformation activated under the influences of three important operative instruments-bandha, bhāva and upayoga. In the Pravacanasāra, he makes it clear that caritra, essentially a matter of internal attitude intimately linked to the attainment of jñāna through dhyana rather than external tapas, is also important. He thus stresses soteriological significance on the internal consciousness rather than external behaviour, which is merely the outward sign of an inner state. The physical asceticism, which Acarya Kundakunda speaks of, is considered as an outward sign of inner purity underlying social imperative.55
53. Cited by Sikdar, p. 99.
54. Johnson, p. 305. 55. Ibid., p. 307.