Jinamanjari 2002 04 No 25

Author(s): Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication

Page 52

servant, is all distinctions based upon the body and hold good only in the empirical world."
In this way the Self appropriates the attributes and limitations of the not-Self (as is evident in the assessment " I am Brahmin" "I am fat" and the like). But the identification of the Self does not mean the total identification of being, because the Self is intrinsically real, and its identification with the not-Self only means that the Self owns up the not-Self and vests it with its own existence. Thus in all cases of error the substratum is real and the predicate is falsely superimposed upon it. "Correct knowledge necessarily demands complete escape from such an error. Otherwise it is not possible to realize the true nature of the Self, which is the ultimate object of all philosophical and religious discipline.'
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Therefore, Śankarācārya indicates the true nature of the Self which should be discriminated from the non-chetana bodily attributes as free from all wants and raised above all social distinction as Brahmin and kshatriya and so on. This entirely transcended the empirical samsarika existence "to whom even Vedic injunctions will cease to be operative, because he is placed in a region from where he does not want to achieve anything more, because he is completely self-sufficient." The Samayasara of Kundakunda is the most sublime spiritual work ever composed, and deals with all these points. The work begins with the distinction between the two points of view vyavaharika and niśchaya, the practical and real. Kundakunda describes the empirical world where the individual identifies himself with the characteristics of the external objects as a result of the absence of true knowledge. The course of conduct prescribed by practical ethics is said to have only a secondary value as probation for the higher class. Bodily characteristics, instincts, and emotions and the various psychic states of the individual Self are all dismissed to be the result of the operation of the erroneous identification of the Self or paramatma.' The self is established in his own pure svabhava (nature) i.e. become svayambhu. The empirical self, who is contaminated by the impure psychic dispositions of attachment, aversion, passions etc. due to erroneous identification with the body senses and the mind, is transcended. In this transcendence one perceives only one, so much so that Amritchandra, the Sanskrit commentator of the Samayasara, in declaring that in such transcendental state all dualities disappear (bhati na dvaitameva),' sounds like a monist Vedantin.
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Professor A. Chakravarti observes: "Thus without changing the words, Sankara's introduction [Bhasya] may be considered to be a
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