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THE NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE SIDES OF
CONDUCT ACCORDING TO THE UPANIŞADS, THE GĪTĀ AND JAINISM
The Upanişads, the Gītā and Jainism regard the deliverance of the Self as the summum bonum of human life. They also describe the means to be adopted for the attainment of that sublime end. The Prašna Upanişad says that the atman is to be discovered through faith, knowledge, austerity, and chastity.' According to the Kathopanişad, he who has not desisted from doing evil, and whose mind is not calm and equipoised, cannot hope to attain the Self even if he is equipped with the intellect of deep penetration. In the same strain, the Gītā tells us that those who have no faith in the sovereign truth wander through the circle of birth and death. The sublime height cannot be attained by the undisciplined." Thé evil-doers who are deluded by illusion, and who partake of the nature of demons cannot reach the supreme, on the other hand, those who have renounced all desires, and who are free from attachment pride and selfishness realise tranquility. According to Jainism also, the attainment of liberation is dependent on the acquisition of right faith, right knowledge and right conduct. The Darśanapāhuda tells us that right faith engenders right knowledge, by virtue of which the virtuous and vicious paths are cogitated, and that the possessor of right faith, in turn, blows away vices and adopts Sīla, thereby enjoying prosperity and emancipation. The Mokšapāhuda proclaims that neither knowledge nor austerity is fruitful, individually, the fusion of the two brings about emancipation. Sīla and knowledge are never opposed to each other. It is stated that right faith, knowledge, austerity, self-control, truth, non-stealing, chastity, contentment and compassion for living beings form the family of the former. Neither intellectual study, nor the keeping of books and the peacock feather, nor living in a religious institution, nor pull
Jaina Mysticism and other essays
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