Studies In Umasvati And His Tattvartha Sutra

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

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Studies in Umāsvāti
to cause only īryāpatha bandha, which lasts for three moments, and the only type of karma that is bound in this manner is sātāvedanīya karma. There is absolutely no mention in any text of any other type of karmic matter being bound as a result of īryāpatha kriyā.
However, there may be a hint in Bhagavati Sūtra 1.10 (325) that at one time these two terms may not have been mutually exclusive. Followers of another faith (parautthiya) say at any one time, he performs two activities, which are activities due to movement (īryāpatha kriyā) and those due to inner passions (sāmparāyika kriyā). Now, they add, at the time he performs activity due to movement, he performs activity due to passions, and at the time he performs activity due to passions, he performs activity due to movement, and so forth. Mahāvīra rejects this with the words, 'a living person at one time performs one activity.'
Most sources maintain that īryāpatha kriyā can be performed only by those mendicants whose passions have been temporarily suppressed or have been permanently destroyed, in other words, by mendicants in advanced stages of spiritual purity equivalent to the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth gunasthānas. For example, in Uttarādhyayanasūtra, 'Exertion in Righteousness, the various stages of purification of the soul are discussed. Immediately following the discussion of the destruction of krodha, māna, māyā, and lobha, the destruction of the remaining ghāti karmas is described, following which the soul becomes a sayoga-kevalin. 'And while he still acts he acquires but such Karman as is inseparable from religious acts (airya-pathika); the pleasant feeling (produced by it) last but two moments; in the first moment it is acquired, in a second it is experienced, and in the third it is destroyed; this Karman is produced, comes into contact (with the soul) takes rise, is experienced, and is destroyed; for all time to come he is exempt from Karman'.36