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Śramana, Vol. 55, No. 1-6
January-June 2004
Concept of Self Evolution in Jainism
Prof. Mukul Raj Mehta*
There are various processes leading oneself from the stage of iniplicit faith in the truth to the stage of final realization of the truth. The processes have a common term for them and that term is yoga'. In Jainism the term caritra (conduct) is equivalent of the term Yoga.
- First of all, we must have some understanding of the general scheme of the Jaina doctrine of conduct (cāritra). The inflow of karmic matter is due to the three-fold activities of the mind, the sense-organ of speech and the body, hence the first condition of the stoppage of inflow is the control (gupti) over thought, speech and physical movements. There are other conditions needed for the consummation. They are: (1) the five-fold regulation (samiti) of the five main activities for the maintenance of life; (2) the ten-fold moral virtues (dharma) of consummate forbearance, modesty, renunciation, non-attachment and celibacy;4 (3) contemplation (anuprekśā) of these twelvefold objects viz. the fleeting nature of things, the helplessness of one involved in the worldly existence, the nature of the world itself as fraught with misery and suffering, the loneliness of the worldly sojourn, the transcendental nature of the self as distinct and separate from the body, the impure character of the body, the conditions of the inflow of karmic matter and the consequent misery and suffering, the nature of the condition of the stoppage of karmic inflow, the nature of the condition of the dissociation of karmic matter from the soul, the nature of the constituents of the universe, the difficulty of the attainment of enlightenment, and the rightness of the path of righteousness one has selected to tread upon:(4) the patient endurance of the twenty-two afflictions (parişahas)" and their conquest for the sake of steady persistence in the path of righteousness as well as for the dissociation of karmic matter and (5) the five-fold conduct (cāritra) viz. desisting from all harmful activities (sāmāyika), re-initiation (chedopasthāpanā) after the rectification of *Deptt. of Philosophy, Banaras Hindu University.
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