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purc body of the kevalin, now called the paramd-audariku-sarira, will be maintained not by any fresh food dcposilcd (prukșipta) in die mouth or absorbed through the pores of the skin (loma-ülūra), but solely by uic nourislument derived from thic nokamma-vargaņā. Accordingly, they maintained Ural Uic body of die kevalin will be sustained by this voluntary karmic process until the end of his present lise. Then, like a chunk of camphor, this purc body at the moment of dcath, will suddenly cvaporate and the kevalin's persccicd soul will reach thic abode of thic libcratcd ones (siddha) at the summit of uic univcrsc. Sunsāra and food would thus appear to be coterminous for a Jaina; there never was a time when he has not eaten in this beginningless cycle of birth and death. The path of mokşa, thereforc, consists in overcoming the desire for food in all its forms, for truc libcration is freedom from lunger for ever.
Notes
*Whyper read at the 41st annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies (Washington, D, C.: March 18, 1989), Session 56: "Edible Complexes: Altitude Toward Food and Eating in South Asian Tradition and Culturc."
This article was published originally in Jain Studies in Honour of Jozef Deleu, eds. Smet and Watanabe, (Tokyo: Hon-No-Tomosha, 1993), pp. 339-354. Reprinted with kind permission of The Editor, Kenji Watanabe.
1. Rgvedu VIII 48. 2. Taittariya-Upanişul III 1-6. 3. Ibid., 1 1. 4. Sce P. S. Jaini, “The Pure and the Auspicious in the Jaina Tradition," Journal of
Asian Perspectives (Lciden) 1, 1 (1985). 5. Bhagavali-sūtra XV 552; A. L. Bashan, The llistory and Doctrines of the
Ajīvakas, London 1951. 6. Ibid. 7. Hermann Jacobi, Jaina Sülras, pt. 1, Sacrod Books of the East, vol. 20, p. 86
(Ācārāriga-sūtra 1 84). 8. Scc P. S. Jaini, The Jaina Path of Purification, Berkclcy 1979, P. 27 n. 61. 9. Majjhimanikāya : 80. ko. Sec Colette Caillai, Atonements in the Ancient Jaina Ritual of the Jaina Monks,
L.D. Institute of Indology, no. 49, Aluncdabad 1975. 11. Manlısmrti vi 20. 12. See P. S. Jaini, The Jaina Path of Purification, pp. 227-233.
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