________________
64 : Śramaņa, Vol 62, No. 2 April-June 2011
(vii) Vātsalya : Affection towards spiritual brethren. (viii) Prabhāvanā : Spreading/advertising the greatness of Jaina
doctrines? The three types of superstitious ignorance, mūdhas, from which a true believer must be free, are-(i) loka-mūdha, (ii) dcva-mūdha and (iii) samaya-mūdha. Among the three misbelieves the first refers to the superstition regarding attachment of sanctity to certain places of belief like; a bath in the Ganges will wash off the sins. The second is the belief in the efficacy of village gods and goddesses, who are endowed with ordinary human qualities and attempts to propitiate them. The third shows regard for false ascetics and considers their teaching as gospel truth. Freedom from these three types of superstitions is the essential condition of right faith.
Along with these, there must be freedom from eight kinds of prides. The eight kinds are: pride in (i) learning (jñāna), (ii) worship (pūjā), (iii) family (kula), (iv) caste (jāti), (v) power (bala), (vi) affluence or accomplishments (pddhi), (vii) religious austerities (tapas) and (viii) person (vapu).
The Jaina works describe at length the glory of the right faith and enumerate the benefits which can be accrued by a person possessing right faith. They go to the extent of declaring that the asceticism without faith is definitely inferior to faith with observance of vows by layman?. The right faith is, in short, given precedence over right knowledge and conduct because it acts as a pilot in guiding the soul towards mokṣa. In addition to the transformation of consciousness, self attains the fourth guņasthāna. As per my view the eight limbs of samyag-darśana can be very well applied to the upliftment of any organization as well as for the holistic development of spiritual-cum-social personality. Let us proceed to discuss the concept of niḥśarkita etc. one-by-one.
