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Nr. III1 KNOWLEDGE & CONDUCT IN JAINA SCRIPTURES.
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the fire and fell into a ditch brimful of burning coals and was consumed. The knower without self-restraint is unable to flee from the fire of karman; similarly the other fails without knowledge. It is said (by the Tirthakaras ) that only the conjunction of jiāna and kriyū bears the fruit of mokşa. Not by a single wheel does the chariot move. The blind man and the lame man having come together in the wood, and thus united, entered the city.
Here a story is told by way of illustration. There was a forest fire. The blind man, not knowing (seeing ). was fleeing towards it, but being warned by a lame man, “Don't fee in that direction, for the fire is there", asked, "Where should I go?" The lame one said, “I am lame, and cannot move, so in front I can't show the way lying at a distance ; put me on your shoulder so that I may avoid the obstacles of thorns, fire etc., and with ease, lead you to the city." The other agreed and both of them reached the city happily.
नाणं पपासयं सोहओ तवो सजमो य गुत्तिकरो।
तिणहपि समाओगे मोक्खो जिणसासणे भणियो॥ Knowledge is the revealer, tapas (practice of austerities) is the purifier, samyama (self-restraint ) is the protector. In the scriptures of the Jinas it is said that only in the conjunction of the three lies liberation ( mokşa).
Here the following imagery is given. There is an empty room, with a door slightly ajar, and many windows, filled with profuse dust and filth driven in by the wind. Now some one wants to reside in the room; he wants to clean it; he shuts the door and all the windows for preventing the entry of dust and filth from outside. He lights a lamp in the middle of the room, and employs a man servant in drawing together the filth etc., in this affair, the lamp does service in revealing the impurity 'such as dust etc., the shutting of the door and the window in preventing the entry of outside dust, and the man servant in purifying by drawing together the dust ( and ejecting it).
Here jñāni is that lamp which by its very nature, does service by revealing the impurity which is to be removed. Kriya
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
