Shravakachar of Vasunandini

Author(s): Signe Kirde
Publisher: Signe Kirde

Page 57

5.2
Catalogue of Vices
5
TRANSLATION: SR (57-205)
stage of final emancipation.171
61) Because of this evil, it (the sentient being] wanders, moving to and fro], in the wheel of the four destinies: the ocean of mundane existence. Its water is suffering, and its many waves are [birth), wane and death.
• himdai: According to Ts II.10 the sentient being is classified in two
ways. It is either in the condition of samsāra, or in the state of the "liberated soul". The mundane beings are depicted as wandering, when they are in the condition of helplessness. Because of the lack of knowledge and insight they are considered as being "unprotected". Sometimes Jain authors compare this state of mind with that of a boat in the ocean which is leaking. We find the illustration of this idea in several rebirth stories of the Jain elders and universal emperors, the salāka-purusas. 172
62) Due to the results of the vice of) dicing, the helpless sentient being attains endless suffering, i.e. the experience of the cutting, breaking and mutilating of its limbs.
. cheyana-bheyaņa-vikattaņâ- Pkt. chedana-o is repeated in an ex
tended list of physical pain in (180-181). A parallel list appears in Mül (1577-1578).
63) Blind out of lust) for gambling he neither treats his best friend with respect, nor the spiritual parent, nor his mother and father, for he commits a lot of indecent, reproachable deeds.
•ņa ganei Cf. the parallel structure of (63a) and (104a).
64) Someone who is addicted to gambling behaves indecently everywhere: towards his family, towards the members of other people's families, and towards his country. Even his mother may not trust him.
65) In this world, fire, poison, thieves and snakes cause intense suffering, but gambling causes a man's suffering in Hundred Thousand future destinies.
171 See also Amitagati's Srāvakācāra, chapter XI; Glasenapp 1942:9; Schubring 1962:180ff., Sogani 1967:52: Williams 1963:33-42, 69, 93; Jaini 1979:112ff., 157ff., 272-273.
172 See for instance Winternitz 1927 [1977] Vol. II: 504; Williams 1963:34; Varni 20032004, Vol. IV, pp. 12ff.