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Śvetāmbara Scholars on Kundakunda: An Appraisal
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“All these standpoints (nayas) are right in their own respective spheres - but if they are taken to be refutations, each of the other, then they are wrong. But a man who knows the ‘non-one-sided' nature of reality never says that a particular view is absolutely wrong” (Sanmati-tarka, 1.28)
Devendra Kumar Shastri, the editor and translator of Sanmatisūtra, states: "Besides Kundakunda and Umāsvāmi” the influence of Samantabhadra “is clearly discernible on Sanmati-sutra" and that "there is absolutely no doubt that while composing the Sanmatisūtra, Siddhasena had before him the Āpla-mimāmsā and the Svayambhū-stotra'l of Samantabhadra.
5. Continuing his diatribe against Kundakunda's use of svasamaya and para-samaya in the context of Jaina doctrines, Dhaky further states:
According to Kundakundācārya, sva-samaya is the one which relates to ātman, the para-samaya meant anything outside ātman, including one's body. This is an absolutely different way of looking at the connotation of the terms, indeed not referred to by even southern Jaina writers.22
Kundakunda's statement that jīva (self) or ātman (soul) exists in material (pudgala) karma (Samayasāra, 2), including no-karma, i.e. body, which acts as an auxiliary cause (nimitta-kāraṇa) for attachment etc. mode of consciousness, completely denies Dhaky's mistaken assertion that according to Kundakunda “para-samaya meant anything outside ātman including one's body”.23
The only good point for which Dhaky seems to give credit to Kundakunda is in regard to creating third category of śuddha (pure) disposition of ātman or self, besides the "two categories of śubha (auspicious and desirable) and aśubha (inauspicious and undesirable)"?4 psychic dispositions.
6. Dhaky also critcises Kundakunda for adopting his concepts about the way of looking at self from Vedānta “but in a modified
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