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can one have who wishes well for everyone and who does not wish to gain anything from anyone? Just as to preach mercifully and selflessly is a noble activity, so are the activities of saving lives, to serve others, to co-operate with them in their auspicious works is also noble. Nowhere in the agamic lore have such activities been denied or restricted. Canonical works do say that feelings of attachment (motivated by selfish motives), ignorance and violence are only fit to be given up but not the activities undertaken under the influence of mercy, kindness, compassion, friendship, non-violence, etc. Even Acarya Kundkunda, who has analysed the concepts of absolute and practical standpoints threadbare, has said in the context of compassion in relation to rightvision that compassion is the volitional feeling under which a person is moved by other thirsty, hungry and miserable living beings and acts mercifully towards them.13
On the basis of Acārya Kundakunda's Samayasāra itself Dr. Bharilla has also tried to establish that a living being dies when its lifespan determining karma exhausts and lives till it does not. Therefore, neither can someone kill another one nor can he save someone.14 Dr. Bharilla must know that living and dying are subjects of the practical standpoint. Absolutely speaking one is neither born nor does one die. Also, from the absolute standpoint, the soul is devoid of any karmic burden and one need not try for karmic separation. If we study the agamic lore from the practical standpoint, we find that with the exception of the persons who are to attain spiritual liberation in the same birth (caramaśarīrī jiva), exalted personages (ślākāpuruşa or the spiritual torch bearers), human and subhuman beings with a life-span of innumerable years and unexpectedly born divine and hellish creatures all living beings have commutable life-spans which can be shortened for various unavoidable reasons. 15 Ordinary human beings have to be cautious for this reason only that our life spans are commutable. If that were not so, we would be safe even driving with our eyes closed. That the lifespan is commutable is also found mentioned in the Sthānanga sūtra where it describes seven reasons that can shorten the lifespan as
Editor's Note
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