Shravakachar of Vasunandini

Author(s): Signe Kirde
Publisher: Signe Kirde

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5.2 Catalogue of Vices
5 TRANSLATION: ŚR (57-205)
sahasă referring to the transgressions against the vows of the laity (aticāras). There is a concern to avoid sudden actions which result in the injury of life, such as the placing or putting down of harmful objects on the ground, using fire and poison, joining, mixing or putting together objects which can be used as weapons, and the trade with harmful objects. Sahasa relates to harmful thoughts, words and deeds (himsadana or arambha-parigraha) in Śr (106b), (121b), (137d), (139c), (141b), (151c), (158b). Outside Jainism we find in Meulenbeld 1999 I A:29 and I B:110 a summary of some results of sudden action (translated into English: "inconsiderate behaviour") as described in the Caraka-samhita, Nidāna-sthāna. In the aetiology sudden action is assumed to be a cause of "wasting disease" (soṣa).
• ajampanijjam Vasunandin regards the intoxication due to taking liquor and the results thereoff as a severe evil. The drunkard causes many kinds of harmful actions (himsâdāna), since the effect of intense passions can arise all of a sudden. Someone who is intoxicated by inebriety says things that should not be said (Prof. Balbir, p.c.). 183
77) By committing those faults [and misdeeds) under the influence of liquor - shameful in many ways - someone engenders much evil.
⚫ anubamdhai By the term Skt. bandha ("binding" or "bondage") Jain authors characterise one of the conditions of the sentient being. 184 In Ts V.44 Umāsvamin states that the "activities and modes of sentience in souls have a beginning" 185 True insight, right knowledge and conduct, these three are considered as the path leading to the suppression of inflow. For avaraim cf. (146).
78-79) Due to this evil he attains many kinds of never-ending suffering, being lost in the wilderniss of the ocean of mundane existence, which is filled with the beasts of birth, old age and death.
Knowing the faults attached to drinking liquor in all its varieties he should abstain from it by [the three ways of] mind, speech and deed. And he should
183 In the commentary of Śr (M) the participle is translated into Hindi na bolanā yogya
vacana bolata hai. In these stanzas Vasunandin describes the behaviour of a drunkard who comes back home after having drunk. Outside Jainism we find in the Buddhist rules of conduct (sila) in the Digha-Nikaya 1.71 the abstention from taking drugs and alcohol. Cf. also Hara 1986:21-45; Bone 1996:17-42; for Vedic customs cf. Bodewitz 2002:215. 184 See Ts I.4; V.44. "Bondage" is one of the fundamentals of Jain karma theory discussed in Ts VIII.1ff., especially Ts VIII.9. See also KA (414ff.); Dixit 1974:7-8; Jaini 1979:82, 112; Wiley 2006.
185 See Tatia 1994:145.
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