Studies In Umasvati And His Tattvartha Sutra

Author(s): G C Tripathi, Ashokkumar Singh
Publisher: Bhogilal Laherchand Institute of Indology

Page 161

The Jaina Universe in a Profile of Cosmic Man 151 they ever be separated? It must have been a grave and pressing issue to be solved by the then canonical authors.
Here, Jaina canonical authors got help from the traditional Brahmanical concept of‘aham brahmāsmi' in the Brhadāranyaka upanişad and 'tattvam asi' in the Chāndogya upanişad. In other words, the unification of Ātman with Brahman is the wellknown established method of freedom from samsāra in the Brahmanical tradition. The Jaina authors resorted to the same method, and established ‘kevali samudghāta', the Jaina method of annihilating a kevali's entire karmas and attaining liberation, by allowing him to be unified or to become one with Cosmic Man, the Jaina loka.
In order to deny one's total self and become free from it, there is no other way for him, but to transcend the level of his own self and become one with the absolute one, Brahman or God, or with whatever name you may wish to call him. Likewise, if a kevali wants to be absolutely free from his entire karmas that have been inseparably bound with his transmigrating self since the beginningless time, there is just no other way for him, but to transcend the level of such self and become one with the absolute one, who stands outside the phenomena of samsāra. The Jaina theoreticians had to thus build their loka in the profile of Cosmic Man.
Buddha who was a historical person in Hinayāna Buddhism, came also to be considered as pervading throughout the universe in Mahāyāna Buddhism. This idea was soon followed by the corollary that Buddha is no other than the cosmic world itself. This cosmic world is called Buddha's ‘dharma kāya', that is often expressed by cosmic vairocana. This idea, of course, goes back to that of puruṣa in the ‘Puruşa-sūkta hymn' in the Ķgveda X.90. Puruśa or original man is here depicted as God of sacrifice as well as the object of sacrifice, by whose immolation the present world including all things, human beings, deities and all others