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SAMAYASĀRA
the various shapes of spiritual development which are implied by the technical term, guṇasthānas, which are gradations based upon ethico-spiritual development. Human beings are classified according to the principle of such a development and arranged according to various classes of ascending gradation beginning with mithyādịşti upto ayogakevalī, from the one in whom right faith is absent upto one who has attained spiritual perfection through liberation from Karmic upādhis. Apramatta, which is the seventh stage in the gradation, stands for the eight upper stages, whereas pramatta, which is the sixth in the gradation, represents the six lower stages. Thus the author emphasises the fact that the characteristics brought about by the association of the Self with upādhic conditions,-the guṇasthāna being based upon such qualitïes-must be understood to be entirely alien to the nature of the Pure Self.
The author, who proposes to investigate the nature of the True Self, thus starts with the thesis that his nature is distinct from modes and characteristics resulting from its combination with the upadhic material condition whose nature is entirely distinct from that of the Ego-in-itself. The intellectual at mos phere about the time of our author was pregnant with certain fundamental truths accepted by the various systems of thought then prevalent. There were thinkers paying allegiance to the Upanişadic movement, there were the Bauddhas and the Sānkhyas, besides the Jainas. There were also the materialistic free-thinkers about that time. All these different systems accepted certain principles in common., All started with the concrete world of experience as the point of departure for their in gations. In this concrete world they recognised the proud distinction between the organic and the inorganic, the living and the non-living, jiva and ajīva. They also noticed the fundamental difference between the behaviour of the living thing and that of the non-living thing. The behaviour of a living organism however rudimentary in development always indicates a purposive activity capable of spontaneous manifestation, whereas such a purposive spontaneous activity is entirely absent in the inorganic world. The physical object inert and incapable of
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