Studies In Umasvati And His Tattvartha Sutra

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

Page 84

74 Studies in Umāsvāti
and intensity (anubhava), which are dependent on strong, weak, or medium kaṣāyas'." In addition to kaṣāya, there are three other factors that are causes of karmic bondage in which kaṣāya is implicit, namely, false views of reality (mithyātva), lack of self-discipline (avirati), and carelessness (pramāda).8 These along with yoga are the five main causes (mūla-hetus) of bondage. According to Tattvārthasūtra 8.4 (=SS 8.3), there are four aspects of bondage: variety or type (prakṛti), duration (sthiti), intensity of fruition (anubhava/anubhāga) and quantity of karmic matter (pradeśa). 10 The bhāṣya is silent as to the causes of each of these, but according to Sarvārthasiddhi, prakṛti and pradeśa bandha have as their efficient cause (nimitta) activity (yoga) and sthiti and anubhāga bandha have as their efficient cause passions (kaṣāyas). Here, Pūjyapāda quotes a verse, which may be traced to the Mūlācāra of Vaakera, which continues, 'When there the suppression or destruction [of mohaniya karma] there is on cause for sthiti bandha'.11
Johnson's belief that kaṣāyas were introduced into the process of karmic bondage is based in part on the researches of K.K. Dixit and Suzuko Ohira. In comparing passages in the Tattvārtha-sūtra on bondage with those found in the Svetaāmbara canonical texts that, based on language and metre, scholars generally agree to be the earliest, namely, Acārāngasūtra I and Sūtrakṛtāngasūtra I,12 Dixit has observed that 'these texts are almost absolutely silent about the precise mechanism of rebirth and mokṣa, a mechanism which in a particular version is so marked a specialty of the latter-day Jain speculation. We are not here told how the karmic physical particles get attached to a soul and how they get loose from it'. 13 He states that in Sūtrakṛtānga I, 'the moral vices later known as kaṣāya are referred to several times though not under the common designation kaṣāya'. 14 "The term kaṣāya is here never employed, though there often jointly appear the four vices known as kaṣāya... [however] almost nothing is said by way of describing the vices in question. This