Laghutattvasphota

Author(s): Amrutchandracharya, Padmanabh S Jaini, Dalsukh Malvania, Nagin J Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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one attributed above to Jinasena. But the problem of 'unity' (ekatva) of the Jina's consciousness in the face of this dual nature' (dvitaya) remains unsolved. The oft-repeated 'unity' is probably to be understood as spoken from the suddha-naya, leading the aspirant towards the ‘nirvikalpa' stage. This is apparent from the opening portions of the twelfth chapter. The poet hails the Jina as "anekāntaśālin" and speaks of the infinite powers of his consciousness (ananta-cit-kalā). This is followed by the declaration that he will “ignore the manifold nature" and "regard him as undifferentiated knowledge” (aneko'py atimanye tvam jñānam ekam anākulam/ 277). In this passage the word jñāna stands in the place of 'cit' and subsumes both darśana and jñāna. A little later, in verse 286, Amstacandra makes a similar statement, saying that Jina's "inner and outer light shine forth as nothing but intuition" (dặngmātribhavad ābhāti bhavato'ntarbahiś ca yat). This is very significant, for it appears that the poet here wishes to reduce even jñāna, knowledge of external objects, to darśana, 'intuition of the self. This is a valid position, conforming to the doctrine of omniscience in which the Jina, from the niscaya view point, knows only his self. One speaks of the knowledge of external objects from the vyavahāra (conventional') point of view only, as Acārya Kundakunda says in the Niyamasära :
jāņadi passadi savvam vavahāraṇayeņa kevali bhagavam/ kevalaņāņi jāņadi passadi ņiyameņa appāņam//1591/
The thirteenth chapter continues with the topic of the supremacy of darśana according to the suddha-naya. The concepts of contraction and 'expansion of consciousness appear here under the terms 'samhịta' and ‘asamhsta'. The poet characterizes darśana being the quality which, lacking all other objects, has been contracted on all sides (paravedanāstamaya gāļhasamhstā --310) and shines forth with only one object, namely the self.
Having thus stressed the suddha-naya and having impressed the aspirant with the true glory of the Jina, the poet returns to the task of achieving a balance between the niscaya and vyavahāra. For it must to remembered that even the suddha-naya, however exalted, is but a paya (a single view point) and can apprehend only one of the many aspects of the existent. Moreover, the Jina too is subject to the law which regulates the role of external causes in producing effects (bahiranga-hetu-niyata-vyavasthā- 322), and he cannot prevent the objects outside his knowledge from being illuminated by his omniscience. Kundakunda's use of the term vyavahāra in the verse quoted above does not render the knowledge of the objects unreal, nor does it suggest any deficiency in the omniscient cognition. It is the very nature of that cognition, like that of the sun, to illuminate the totality of