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DHARMA-ADHARMA
Suzuko Obira
Dharma and adharma constitute pañcāstikāyas together with akāśa, jiva and pudgala. The function of dharma is said to be the conditional cause of motion and that of adharma the conditional cause of stoppage. Each of them is the one unseparable substance from the standpoint of dravya, pervading in the lokakasa from the standpoint of kşetra, existing eternally in the three teoses of time from the standpoint of kāla, and devoid of material properties from the standpoint of bhāva. All these are known to the Tattvārthasūtra V.
Motion is, however, inherent in the jīva and the pudgala, and stoppage is the absence of motion. It is therefore strange that the Jainas had to establish dharma and adharma as the independent realities, which are the cosmic principles peculiar to the Jain School alone.
Not only this. In the Bhagavatīsūtra XX.2.664 which offers the synonyms of pañcāstikāyas, it is said that dharma, dharmāstikāya, abstinence from 18 kriyās, 5 samitis and 3 guptis, etc. constitute the synonyms of dharma, and their reverse contents constitute the synonyms of adharma. Here dharma-adharma connote the Jaina monks' code of discipline and its transgression, which mean meritorious and demeritorious conducts in the normal sense of their terms. Among the synonyms of pañcāstikāyas, those of dharma-adharma show the most distract positions. Then it is told in the Bhagavatīsūtra XIII.4.481 that the function of dharma includes motion such as coming, going, speaking, blinking and mental-vocal-phycical activities, and the function of adharma includes motion such as standing, sitting, lying down and mental concentration. Here catalogued are the voluntary actions undertaken by a living being.
All these suggest that dharma-adharma which could have been the unnecessary principles for the Jainas had to evolve due to a certain cosmic or cosmological problem peculiar to the Jainas involving motion and stoppage in connection with meritorious -demeritorious deeds and voluntary actions. Then, what could be the peculiar problem as such ? The prohibition of siddhas' instrusion into aloka due to "dharmāstikāyābhāvāt" makes its first appearance in the Tattvärthasūtra X.6. bhāşya which belongs to the end of the Āgamic age. Since the Jainas allotted the sidhhas' abode at the top of loka, they were in the position to explain logically why siddbas cannot
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