Book Title: Mahavira His Life and Teachings
Author(s): Bimla Charn Law
Publisher: Luzac and Co UK

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Page 74
________________ TEACHINGS Na sukhena sukham adhigantabbam, dukkhena sukham adhigantabbam.? What is the dukkha or painful and difficult path whereby the disciples of the Jina were called to seek sukha or infinite bliss, ---the liberation, the deliverance, the beatitude, the salvation, the Niryāņa ? On this head we are informed in the Pāli Sutta that by the dukkha or painful and difficult path was meant dukkarakārikā or rigorous practice of penances Samvara 2 or practice of selfrestraint with regard to the body, speech, and mind was just the other aspect of dukkarakārikā or tapas The practice of austerities or penances was to be resorted to as a means of wearing out and ultimately destroying the effects of sinful deeds (pāpakamma) committed in former existences (pubbe), and that of the threefold self-restraint, as a means of not giving effect to a new karman. Thus from the undoing of the effects of old karman by means of penances (purānānam kammānam tapasā vyantibhāvā) and the non-doing of such acts as are likely to produce a new karman effect (navānam kammānam akaranā) there follows, as 1 Majjhima-Nikāya, I, Cūladukkhakkhandha-Sutta. 2 The term is supplied, as it does not actually occur in the text, but is clearly implied

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