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company of crores of nymphs is incapable of having such an infinite bliss of the sage in contemplation.46
SIDDHA GATI OR THE SIDDHA STATE AS THE HIGHEST GOOD : Sixthly, Jainism speaks of Siddha Gati and the four Gatis (celestial, human, sub-human and hellish). The former is permanent and immutable, and it implies the complete cessation of transmigratory existence. The latter indicate the rounds of birth and death in the empirical world. The Siddha state transcends the realm of cause and effect, inasmuch as the Dravya and Bhāva Karmas and the consequential four types of transmigratory existence have ceased to exist. The category of causality is applicable only to mundane souls and not to the Siddha who is an unconditioned being. Kundakunda announces that the Siddha is neither the product of anything nor produces anything, hence neither effect nor cause. *7 According to the Șațkhaņdāgama he who has destroyed all the Karmas, who is independent of external objects, who has attained infinite, unique, intrinsic and unalloyed bliss, who is not attached to anything, who has achieved steady nature, who is devoid of all sorts of malcharacteristics, who is the receptacle of all virtues is Siddha.48 The acquisition of Siddhahood is indistinguishable from the accomplishment of Nirvāṇa, where, negatively speaking, there is neither pain, nor pleasure, nor any Karmas nor auspicious and inauspicious Dhyānas, nor anything such as annoyance, obstruction, death, birth, positively speaking, there is perfect intuition, knowledge, bliss, potency, immateriality and existence.49 The Acāsānga pronounces: “All sounds recoil thence where speculation has no room, ror does the mind penetrate there.” “The liberated is without body, without
Spiritual Awakening (Samyagdarśana) and Other Essays
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