Religion and Culture of the Jains

Author(s): Jyoti Prasad Jain
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 83

THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
nine quasi-passions, among them cover all the various emotions and passions and shades thereof, which can be conceived. They constitute moral and spiritual uncleanness, and it is only after they are removed that the purity of the soul is realised. Closely related to the kaşāyas is the unique Jaina conception of lesyā, which is the functioning of yoga, cr the activities of thought, word and body, as tinged by the kasāyas, and is allegorically described as being of six different hues-black, blue, greyish (dove-colour), pale (yellow), pink (lotus) and white, depending upon the degree of intensity. The allegory is usually illustrated by the example of six different persons who approach a jambū (blackberry) tree with the desire and intention of eating its juicy fruit. The person with the black leśyā will strike wantonly at the very root of the tree in order to fell it and eat the fruit at ease, that with the blue leśyā will try to sever with the axe a big branch of the tree with the same object, the third will cut a smaller branch or bough, the fourth will pluck and gather whole bunches of the fruit to pick and choose later, the fifth will only pluck the berries one by one and taste them throwing away the bad ones, and the sixth will rest satisfied with picking up from the ground only such and so many berries, lying there, as he wishes to eat.
The first is obviously the morally worst and the last the best, the first three (worst, worse and bad) being designated inauspicious and the last three (good, better and best) the auspicious ones. The first set signified wanton cruelty, gross negligence, rashness, lack of self-control, wickedness and violence, and the second set the gentlemanly qualities, humane behaviour, abstinence from sins and evil deeds, self-control and the like.
Then, there is avirati or strong attachment to the world and worldly things, and there is pramāda which connotes negligence, carelessness, laziness, idleness and sleep, together with indulgence in the enjoyment or the object of the five senses