Jaina Ontology

Author(s): K K Dixit
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 77

JAINA QNTOLOGY
As has already been noted, this procedure is adopted also in Jivabhigama (and in later times Umāsvati subscribes to it), but it was foreign to all old Agamic texts (and it remains foreign to the Digambara texts). Then there are two Uttarādhyayana chapters 33rd and 34th (viz. Karmaprakịti and Lesyā,; they too contain most elementary informations culled from the corresponding chapters of Prajñāpanā. But the Uttaradhyayana chapter 28th (viz, Mokşamārgiya) breathes a different atmosphere; to be precise it breathes the same atmosphere as does Umāsvāti's Tattvārthasūtra. For this chapter speaks of a quadruple mokşamārga -- just as Tattvārthasūtra speaks of a triple mokşamärga; and it describes samyagdarśana as faith in the nine enti. ties, viz. jiva, ajīva, bandha, punya papa, asrava, samvara, nirjara, mokṣa just as Tattvārtha describes samyagdarśana as faith in these very entities minus punya, pā pa. Again, it defines dravya in terms of guna and paryāya just as TattvāItha does. (It can be seen that on each of these questions Tattvārtha represents a more refined position than Uttaradhyayana). Now all these three questions as posed here are unknown to the old Agamic texts. True, while describing samyagdarśana Uttaradhyayana quotes 14 verses which also occur in Prajñāpanā in the course of its account of darsanārya. But the presence of these verses is anomalous at both the places, though for different reasons. Thus once these verses speak of sarva pramāna and sarvanaya. vidhi but these concepts, even if known to the age of Umāsvāti, were unknown to the age of the old Āgamic texts. Again, at one place these verses enumerate the entities whose existence is to be believed in -- but the list contains just six items, viz. jīva, ajīva, punya, papa, āsrava, samvara; this means that these verses were composed at a time when Uttarādhyayana list of nine Tallvas was not yet finally established. That is to say, these verses were composed after Prajñāpanā but before the Uttaradhyayana chaper 28th; later on they were interpolated in the former and borrowed in the latter.
(D) RĀJAPRAŠNĪYASŪTRA The content of Rājaprašniya is pretty miscellaneous but its philosophically most important part consists of the ten sūtras (Nos. 65-74) where the Jaina monk Keší adduces a number of arguments to convince the hereticking Paesī (Pradesi) that soul is somthing different from body. Of these the most important ones are based on the consideration that soul is a real entity even if imperceptible just as so many physical things are real even if imperceptible. Towards the end of the conversation Kesi actually quotes that Bhagavati list of ten things about which it is said that in their entirety they are known and seen only by a kivali. As for the minor arguments, two are based on the consideration that post-mortem life in heaven and hell is a fact even if beings from these quarters seldom visit us on earth - there being definite factors responsible for the circumstance. Similarly, two of them are based on the consideration that even if possessed of the same soul