Jain Journal 2004 01

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

Page 23

148
JAIN JOURNAL : VOL-XXXVIII, NO. 3 JAN. 2004
well done, whether one reaches perfection or not, whether one goes to hell or not. Thus undertaking various works they engage in various pleasures and amusements for their own enjoyment,
The first part is strikingly akin to what Ajita Kesakambala, a senior contemporary of Mahāvīra and the Buddha taught. The Sāmañña-phalasutta (SPhSu) records his teachings as follows:
This being is but a compound of the four great primary elements: after that, the earth-element (or element of extension) returns and goes back to the body of the earth, the water-element (or element of cohesion) returns and goes back to the body of water, the fire element (or element of thermal energy) returns and goes back to the fire, and the air element (or element of motion) returns and goes back to the body of air, while the mental faculties pass on into space.?
The number of elements (“great primary elements”, mahābhūta-s) is mentioned as four, but space too is admitted in relation to the mental faculties, as opposed to the merely physical. The rest of the passage speaks of a materialist doctrine that denies the concepts of religious merits, need for offerings (dāna), etc.:
... The four pall-bearers and the bier (constituting the fifth) carry the corpse. The remains of the dead can be seen up to the cemetery, where bare bones lie greying like the colour of the pigeons. All almsgiving ends in ashes. Fools prescribe alms-giving; and some assert that there is such a thing as merit in alms-giving; but their words are empty, false and nonsensical. Both the fool and wise are annihilated and destroyed after death and dissolution of their bodies. Nothing exists after death.
SKS 1.1.11-12 seem to echo Ajita's words : patteam kasiņe āyā, je bālā je a pamdia/ samti piccā na te samti, natthi sattovavāiyāl/ natthi punne vā pāve vā, natthi löe ito varel sarirassa viņāseņam viņāso höi dehiņo// Every body, fool or sage, has an individual soul. These souls exist (as long as the body), but after death they are no more: there are no souls which are born again. There is neither virtue nor vice, there is no world beyond; on the dissolution of the body the individual ceases to be.