________________ Jaina Meditation selves, viz. the exterior, the interior, and the transcendental, and prescribes the rejection of the exterior, and concentration upon the trans. cendental by the interior. He insists upon the help and guidance of a competent guru (preceptor) for the revelation of truth. He also insists upon the supreme importance of the practice of detachment and indifference. He discourages forcible withdrawal of the mind and the senses, but asks to control them by means of the practice of indifference. When the soul ceases to impel the mind, the latter has no reason to impel the senses. And the senses being inactive, the worldly things lose all charm and fascination. Gradually the mind ceases to exist. With the cessation of the mind, the truth reveals itself to the soul. V. CONCLUSION Meditation, in Jainism, is the penance par excellence. By means of it, one can achieve in a moment what cannot be achieved in years through other penances. Meditation purges the mind of its impurities, both cognitive and emotive. The final end of meditation is emancipation from suffering, the awakening of faith (sraddha) through the restraint (gupti) of mind and speech, being its beginning. The passions of attachment and hatred, lust and animosity, anger and anguish, pride and deceit, can be inhibited by cultivating the four virtues of maitri (friendliness and fellow-feeling), karuna (compassion), mudita (sympathetic joy) and upeksa (equanimity and equilibrium of mind in adverse situations). Tranquillization of the mind is the sine qua non of spiritual advance, and meditation qua maintenance of the purity of mind is the only way to it. In fact, it is the calmness of mind, achieved through meditation, that sanctifies other penances such as fasting and the ritual of mortifying the body for the regeneration of the spirit. The progress in gunasthana is based on the aspirant's power of meditation The observance of the mahavratas which prescribe a life of hard discipline and privation is necessary for the progress in gunasthana. But such observance is fruitful only if the practitioner succeeds in achieving steadfastness of mind by the practice of meditation. And this is why meditation is so intimately associated with the gunasthana. The practice of meditation, strictly speaking, starts from the seventh gunasthana where the aspirant is absolutely free from all sorts of pramada or remissness. The power of meditation gradually deepens in the subsequent gunasthanas and reaches its climax in the twelfth which is followed by the dawn of enlightenment in the thirteenth. All the passions are 1 Ibid., XII. 6. 2 Ibid., XII. 13-17,
