Studies In Umasvati And His Tattvartha Sutra

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

Page 64

54 Studies in Umāsvāti
These two positions although apparently at variance are not truly incompatible. Vedanīya indeed could be seen as the presence of feelings, such as we ordinarily associate with worldly pain and pleasure, but the term does not necessarily imply opposition to what Kundakunda calls the bliss attained by the destruction of the ghāti karmas, if the latter is conceived as not yet being free from all feelings. However, this quality of the soul would appear to be radically different from the other innate qualities such as knowledge (jñāna), intuition (darśana), and energy (vīrya).
It is a universally accepted Jaina doctrine that from beginningless times these three qualities have been obstructed in the sense of being covered (āvsta) as it were, like a mirror is covered by a cloth or the moon is obscured by clouds. Just as the mirror or the moon has not lost the ability to reflect or shine by such obscuration, it is believed that the quality that we understand as knowledge or awareness (jñāna, and by extension its two concomitants, viz. darśana and vīrya), the chief characteristic of a sentient being, has never been totally obscured by its adversary matter called jñānāvaranīya karma. Even the tiniest being such as a nigoda-jīva—which has the least amount of this quality made manifest through only the sense of touch—is still believed to have a certain portion (maybe an nth part) of its infinite potential of knowledge, which must always remain free, unobscured by any karmic matter whatsoever, a portion aptly called 'nitya-udghāita-jñāna'. It is argued that if even this minimum portion of knowledge were to be obscured as well, that soul would be indistinguishable from non-soul, that is, matter.37
This ever-open' part may be said to guarantee that the soul has a certain built-in advantage over karmic matter to which it is bound: while the soul is never bound totally, karmic matter can be destroyed in its entirety. It provides a ray of discrimination (viveka/ bheda-vijñāna) for an aspiring soul to dispel the darkness of its obscurations (āvaraņas) in the course of its long travel in