Some Aspects of Jainism in Eastern India

Author(s): Pranabananda Jash
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

Page 91

Jaina Canonical Texts
and nuns, and male and female lay-followers. When a new tirthankara arises, the followers of the preceding one follow him, as the followers of Pārsvanātha followed Mahāyira.”93 We have earlier mentioned that the number of tirthankaras for every age is believed to be only twenty-four. It is to be noted that a spiritual aspirant of the non-tirthankara group can attain the next higher stage of the siddha by dint of his spiritual attainments which can be had only through pure meditation or contemplation." He is an ideal saint, a paranātnian or god whom the Jainas assign an enormous list of attributes.95
Siddha
This is the last stage or the final goal of a Jaina ascetic. In this stage the ascetic is free from karman altogether, he is completely independent of all exterr al objects. "The siddla has the following characteristics: absolute knowledge, faith, insight, righteousness, and prowess. He also has the power of becoming minute and gigantic at will, and of moving anywhere unhindered; he is unaffected by anything, so that neither death, disease, rebirth, nor sorrow can any longer touch him. He is also without a body; and this is the reason why Jaina feel they can never pray to a siddha." He is described as not being the product of anything nor producing anything. 96 Neither arhat ror siddha has on him the responsibility of creating, supporting or destroying the world. The aspirant receives no boons, ro favours and no curses from bim by way of gifts from the divinity. The aspiring souls pray to him, worship him and meditate on him as an example, as a model, as an ideal that they too might reach the same condition.”97
The acquisition of Siddhahood is synonymous with attaining Nirvāņa" where there is no question of his experiencing either pleasure or pain, or any types of karman. His is a state of infinite, pure and boundless bliss.9' It is nicely described in the Jaina text“All sounds recoil thence where speculation has no room, nor does the mind penetrate there. The liberated is without body, without resurrection, without contact of matter; he is not feminine, nor masculine, nor neuter; he perceives, he knows, but there is no analogy; its essence is without form; there is no condition of the unconditioned '100
Thus, the description of the sixfold monastic order of the Jaina ascetic demonstrates the different stages of perfection of the