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incomparable, infinite and indestructible.29 This transcendental self as the transcendental ideal may also be designated as ‘Svayambhū’.30 To make it clear, it is a state of self-sufficiency which requires no other foreign assistance to sustain itself. It is itself the subject, the object, the means for its achievement, it achieves for itself, destroys the extraneous elements, and is the support of its infinite potencies. Hence the self manifests its original nature by transforming itself into six cases; it is at once the nominative, the accusative, the instrumental, the dative, the ablative, and the locative case respectively. 31
The Mundakopanisad represents that he who has realised the Brahman, the lord and governor of all, has shaken off merit and demerit, and has attained perfect equanimity. 32 The consideration of the Upanişad and the Jaina conform to each other regarding the transcedental plane of life. The highest state of existence transcends both good and evil. Such persons as have realised it within themseleves go beyond righteousness and unrighteousness. According to Kundakunda, the worldly persons generally recognise inauspicious conduct as bad and auspicious one is taken by them as good. But how can the latter be understood as good, since it makes the entrance of the self into the cycle of birth and death.33 Just as a shackle, whether of gold or of iron, indiscriminately ties a man, so also the auspicious and inauspicious conduct bind the self to mundane miseries. 34 The wise shun both Subha and Aśubha. 35 Rare are such persons as are disposed to discard even Punya as Pāpa. " Pūjyapāda tells us that vowlessness causes vice and the observance of vows engenders virtues; but deliverance is the destruction of both.37 The aspirant should adhere to vows after renouncing vowlessness and after attaining to the
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