Jaina Culture

Author(s): Mohanlal Mehta
Publisher: P V Research Institute Varanasi

Page 95

JAINA CULTURE
upon the strong and healthy body. The possession of sound mind is invariably related to the possession of sound body. To develop a strong mind in a weak body is an impossibility. The strength of mental activity is always connected with the strength of bodily construction. It is only a person of excellent physical structure who can control and regulate his mental modifications. The Jaina thinkers hold that it is not possible to concentrate the mind on a particular object for more than forty-eight minutes.
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Meditation is of four kinds: mournful (arta), cruel (raudra), virtuous (dharma) and pure (śukla). Mournful meditation is that thinking of mind which is produced owing to some pain or misery either real or imaginary. It is of four varieties. The constant thinking of the removal of an undesirable object constitutes the first variety. The second variety comprises the anxiety for emancipation from some pain. The sorrowful thinking of the loss of one's beloved object is the third variety. The fourth variety is nothing but the concentration of mind on unsatisfied desires. Cruel meditation, too, is of four types: to contemplate to attack and kill others, to tell a lie to deceive others, to take an undue possession of someone's property and to protect one's own property with intense greed. These two kinds of meditation emerge out of attachment and aversion. The elements of anger, pride, deceit and greed dominate them. Hence, a person of selfcontrol should not be led away by them.
Virtuous meditation is defined as the contemplation of the nature of a particular revelation, suffering, karmic fruition and the structure of the universe. Thus, it is of four types corresponding to its objects. The first type is in the form of the concentration on the nature of a particular mode of revelation. The second type is to be understood as the contemplation of the nature and conditions of misery. The third type comprises the contemplation on the nature of