Mahaviras Word

Author(s): Walther Shubring
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 47

Mahāvīra's Words by Walther Schubring
affirmative. Numerous parallels, faithfully preserved as such, demonstrate Mahāvīra's attempt to make what he means comprehensible to his listeners. In order that they understand him he has to lower himself down considerably and take the environment into consideration. Thus: the blow of an axe causes the same pain to an old man as an (22) injury to an elementary being (19, 3); the innumerable glances directed at a dancer, (glances) whose close compactness, and yet isolation, correspond to the same qualities of space points (11, 10); the pen for goats which is as full of their droppings as there occur origin and destruction in every point of space (12, 7). Souls and matter pervade each other like water a sinking ship (1,6); an action which monastic duty demands remains without consequence just as water flows away from a flawless surface of a boat, or evaporates on glowing iron (aya-kavalla), or like a bundle of dry grass (sukka tana-hatthaya) burns up in fire (3, 3). The gourd encrusted with clay—the well-known comparison is expressly put in Mahāvīra's mouth in Nāyā 671)-rises up from the bottom of the stream to the surface as soon as the burden dissolves; certain seeds burst open in dry heat and (the content) springs out;72 smoke beyond the area of a fire (indhana-vippamukka) takes a direction upwards; an arrow flies from the bow directly to the target: in the same way the soul of one who has overcome kamma journeys upwards on the strength of its freedom from all attachment and adhering to, from all bondage, all inner burning (nirandhanayā) and on the strength of the inherent impulse (puvva-paoga, 7, 1). The stratification in the cosmos where what is heavy is at the top and what is light at the bottom, insofar as wind rests on space, water on wind, earth on water, is first made believable on the example of a tube (vatthi) which one inflates [from the top] (ādovei) and then closes the top (? uppim sitam,-or siyam"--bandhai), and then ties a knot in the middle (majjhenam ganthim bandhai), opens the knot at the top (uvarillam ganthim muyai), lets the air out (uv. desam vāmei), and then fills the upper part with water (uv. d. āu-yāyassa pūrei). Then the top is closed again (? uppim sitam bandhai), the middle opened (majjhillam ganthim muyai), and the water rests on the air (se āu-yāe tassa vāu-yāyassa uppim uvari-tale citthai)! But if, further, someone ties a sack full of air on the hips (vattim ādovei ādovettā kadie bandhai) and then steps into deep water, then he floats on the top
" See Schubring 1927, pp. 28f. (= Kleine Schriften, pp. 102f.); 1978, pp. 22f. (WB).
72 kala-simbaliyā (=kalāyabhihāna-dhānya-phalikā) i vā mugga-si vā māsa-si vā simbali (=vrkşa-viseşah) -
si vă eranda-minjiyā (=eranda-phalam)i vā unhe dinnā sukkā samāni phudittānam eganta-m-antam gacchai.
73 This makes it impossible to separate uppimsi tam, which Abhayadeva considers possible.