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a thing foreign to its nature. And since thesë impure dispositions do not pertain to the self in its original nature, the transcendental self is denied the agency even of these impure dispositions. The denial of the authorship of auspicious and inauspicious psychical dispositions points to the supermundane, uncontaminated state of the self. There is no denying the fact that the empirical self has been the doer of impure dispositions since an indeterminable past; so it is the author of these dispositions. If this is not granted, it will make the position of the Jaina indistinguishable from the position of the Sarkhya which imputes all actions to the material Buddhi, and regards the principle of consciousness as immutable. When the Jaina says that the empirical self is not the agent of impure dispositions, he simply pursuades the empirical self to look to Svabhāva Paryāya. Hence here the chief point of reference is the self in its pure nature. The Jaina reads no contradiction in affirming that the enlightened self which has become familiar with its true nature manifests the pure modes (Svabhāva Paryāyas) and thereby becomes the substantial agent of those modes, and in affirming that the ignorant self because of its erroneous identification with the alien nature develops impure dispositions, and thereby it is called their agent22. Just as from gold only golden things can be produced, and from iron only iron things, so the enlightened self produces pure modifications (Svabhāva Paryāyas) and the ignorant self produces impure ones (Vibhāva Paryāyas)23. When the ignorant self becomes enlightened, it starts generating pure modifications without any discongruity. Thus the self is simply the doer of its own states and not the doer of anything else whatsoever. The empirical self is the author of impure psychical dispositions. But if we advance a step further and reflect transcendentally, we arrive at the inevitable conclusion that the pure self cannot be the author of these impure psychical dispositions because they are foreign to its nature. Thus the transcendental self is the doer of transcendental Bhāvas. Besides, it is also their enjoyer24.
Jaina Mysticism and other essays
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