Sambodhi 1973 Vol 02

Author(s): Dalsukh Malvania, H C Bhayani
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 42

36
K. K. Dixit
accidental that when a other cultic performances. Perhaps, it was not standard 12-item catalogue of the householder's religious duties was ultimately drawn up its ten items were of the form of an ethical perforthese latter mance and two of the form of a cultic performance; and two were Sämäyika and Pausadha, Of course, one particular canonical text forins an exception to what is being said here. It is the Avasyakasutra, a text exclusively devoted to the treatment of a cultic performance called Aaijaka and consisting of six steps-viz. Samayika, Caturvimsatistava, Vandana, Kayotsarga, Pratikramaṇa, Pratyakhyāna. Now, even here the last two steps are of the form of an ethical performance, but as conceived here they too have a cultic ring above them. Thus Samayika is the process of attaining for a short while the state of complete mental composure, Caturvimsatistava the process of singing hymns in praise of the 24 Tirthankaras, Vandana the process of paying obeisance to the venerable personages, Kayotsarga the process of rendering the body steady in some fixed posture or other (something like the bodily counterpart of Sāmāyıka which is an operation of mind), Pratikramana the process of confessing une's past offences against the code of proper conduct, Pratyakhyana the process of making a resolve not to commit such offences in future. The fact that the cult of Avasyaka thus makes its appearance in a stray and solitary fashion in just one particular canonical text makes it almost certain that the cult as well as the text devoted to it were a fairly late phenomenon. It was only because the cult of Avasyaka as well as the cult of idol-worship satisfied some very strongly felt need of the contemporary Jaina society that both were adopted so enthusiastically and so unanimously that it began to seem as if they were practices of a hoary antiquity,
Having thus disposed of the question of cultic performance we are left only with the question of ethical performance so far as the field of practical activity is concerned. As had been noted a little earlier, the problem of ethical performance had been engaging the attention of the Jaina theoreticians since the oldest days and some sort of evolution of thought is distinctly visible in this connection. An essential feature of all ethical discussion is a broad classification of good and evil acts and it will be Instructive to study as to what acts were regarded as good and evil by the Jaina moralists. It is somewhat natural to expect that acts actuated by a spirit of acquisitiveness should come in for condemnation at the hands of Jainas who were a monastic religious sect. As a matter of fact, we actually find the Acaranga I Śrutaskandha-particularly its II chapterdenouncing the person who is mad after accumulating wealth. The impression is unmistakable that as understood by this text acquisitiveness is the chief vice-all the remaining vices, of which too a good number