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The Jaina Theory of Liberation and the Non-absolute :: 239
Kundakunda's Theory of Samayasāra or the Essence of the
Soul
The grandeur of Kundakunda's philosophy of the soul, does not lie in viewing the soul as pure but in the search of a truth beyond all the nayas. "The soul is bound with the karmas or not bound with them are the theses (pakşas) of nayas. What is beyond these theses is the essence of the soul.”' the commentator Amrtacandra Sūri states: “Those, who leave attachment of all the theses and are safe within their identity (svarūpa), enjoy the nectar with a peaceful mind being free from the network of the mental vicissitudes (vikalpas). One and many, permanent and transitory, expressible and inexpressible, bound and unbound are all the theses of the nayas; reality, paramārtha or the vastu transcends all these theses. Again what the above lines aim to establish is that no thesis is able to give a true picture of reality and that for every thesis there is an antithesis. If reality is described as one (eka), the thesis of many (aneka) emerges to disturb our judgment and vice versa. But one and many are both predicable of reality in their proper reference systems. One and many both belong to the same reality. Hence reality is held to transcend these theses, if it is to be comprehended in its fullness. Vidyānandin also states that reality or the vastu is something beyond one and many and is different from them. Rājamalla himself has admitted that the grandeur of the experience of self is different from the thesis of the niscaya naya.4 The ideal of Jaina metaphysics is neither the truth of the niscaya naya nor that of any other viewpoint, but it is a transcendence of all these view-points and it is held to be indescribable. Again the Jaina does not like to hold the indescribability of the soul to be absolute. If so, it will be impossible to predicate
1. Kundakunda: Samayaprābhrta, verse 152 2. Amrtacandra: Samayasāra-kalasa, verse 70 3. Vidyānandin: Astasahasri, p. 290 4. Rājamalla: Pañcādhyāyi, II. verse 646
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