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Samayasára
Chapter - 3
Annotations :
In these verses Ācārya Kundakunda refers to an important part of Jain philosophy called “Doctrine of gunasthāna" which means stages of spiritual progress towards self-realization. We have, on more than one occasions, referred to the inherent purity of the soul and its innate ability to demolish the power of karma. However, the soul has to pass through innumerable states for reaching the highest stage of spiritual purity from the lowest. All the states have been grouped into fourteen stages of development called gunasthānas. The lowest stage is the state of perverted world-view/ vision called mith yādrsti gunasthāna and the highest one the fourteenth stage is the state which is immediately followed by unembodied final emancipation. Before reaching this stage which lasts only for very short time the most important (embodied) state is the thirteenth stage called sayogi kevalī gunasthāna, when all the four obscuring (ghāti) karma are annihilated and the soul has achieved omniscience. The thirteen states mentioned in these verses are from perverted world-view/vision to the last moment of sayogi kevali. . Four primary conditions of bondage referred to in the verse are: (i) Perverted world-view (mith yātva) (ii) non-abstinence (avirati) (iii) passion (kaşāya) and (iv) threefold activity. Of these four, the succeeding ones exist in the presence of the preceding ones but it is not necessary that the preceding ones must exist on the existence of the succeeding ones.
1. Perverted world-view (mithyātva) is the main force which obstructs the innate capacity of the soul to end the worldly existence. The inherent purity of the soul generates a centrifugal tendency to escape from the beginningless cycles of births and deaths. But this centrifugal tendency is thwarted by the powerful opposing centripetal force which keeps the soul glued to the circle of worldly existence (samsāra cakra). This centripetal force consists in the twin distortions of attachment (rāga) and aversion (dvesa) or rather their root, perversion (mithyātva). An important and relevant point to be noted here is that the centrifugal force is identified with the soul while the opposing centripetal force mithyātva, the primal condition of bondage, is identified with an alien, the karmic matter. Another point to be carefully noted is that the soul can never be
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