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DOCTRINE OF KARMA
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CAUSES OF POWER-HINDERING KARMA
The withholding of food, drink, lodging, clothing, and the like causes the binding of power-hindering karma. PREVENTION AND DESTRUCTION OF KARMA
The binding of new karma can be prevented through the means of control of the activity of body, speech, and mind (gupti); carefulness in waking, speaking, lifting up and laying down a thing, etc. (samiti), moral virtues (dharma); reflection (anupreksā); patient endurance of troubles ( parişaha-jaya), and conduct (cāritra).
The acquired karmas can be annihilated through suitable measures of fasting, reduction of food, restriction to certain kinds of food, renunciation of delicacies, a lonely resting place, mortification of the body, evpiation, modesty, service, study, renunciation of ego-identification, and meditation.? STAGES OF SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
According to Jaina philosophy, there are fourteen stages of development through which the soul gradually delivers itself from the state of complete dependence upon karma to the state of complete dissociation from it. These stages are known as the 'states of virtue', i.e., guṇasthānas. Here the word 'virtue' does not mean an ordinary moral quality but it stands for the nature of soul, i.e., knowledge, belief, and conduct.3
Through these fourteen stages of developinent the soul gradually frees itself, firstly from the worst, then from the less bad, and finally from all kinds of karma, and manifests the innate faculties of knowledge, belief, and conduct in a more and more perfect form. The owners of these stages are the following: I. Wrong believer ( mithyādysti). 2. One who has a slight taste of right belief ( suīstidīna samyagdysti). 3. One who has a mixed belief ( miśradysti).
1 Tattvārtha-sūtra, IX, 2. 3 ibid., IS, 3; IX, 19-20 3 Tatra guņāḥ. )ñanadarsenacārt arībāḥ;irastabhāidir sešāḥ
Karma-grantha, II, : ( commentary) + ibid.
