Studies In Umasvati And His Tattvartha Sutra

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

Page 91

Karmic Bondage and Kaṣāyas 81 Likewise, Abhayadevasūri, in his commentary on the Sthānāngasūtra states that īryāpatha kriyā is associated with yoga only, with the three, starting with upaśānta-mohanīya (i.e. the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth guṇasthānas), and with sātā-vedaniya karma. According to Bhagavati 3.3 (182b). 'The karman bound by actions [especially movements] performed by a monk while discharging his religious duties (īriyāvahiyā kiriyā) is consumed within two samayas'. 37 Apparently this applies only to those mendicants in advanced states of spiritual purity for Bhagavati 7.1 (291a) states that a monk (aṇagāra) who moves and handles his equipment without attentiveness (aṇāuttam) performs a profane action (samparāiyā kiriyā) not an action in agreement with his mendicant duties (iriyāvahiyā kriyā) because the four passions are not extinguished in him (avocchinna) and because he acts against the precepts (ussuttam rīyai).38
Conversely, according to Bhagavatī 7.1 (309b) 'when a monk who is closed [against karmic influx] (samvuḍa aṇagāra) moves and handles his equipment in an attentive way (auttam) he commits an action in agreement with his religious duties (iriyāvahiyā kiriyā), not a profane action (samparāiyā kiriyā) because in him the four passions are extinguished (vocchinna) and he acts in agreement with the precepts (ahāsuttam eva rīyai)'.39 Likewise, it is stated here that the karma resulting from a religious action (īriyāvahiya-kamma) may be bound only by human beings (maņussa, maṇussi) who, though formerly women, men or 'neuters' (itthī-purisa and napumsaga-paccākaḍa) have got rid of the sexual feeling (avagaya-veya).40 This, of course, would exclude those mendicants who are still subjects to the three vedas, which in classical karma theory, are suppressed or eliminated in the ninth guṇasthāna.41
Schubring sees a contradiction here between this and the earlier statement about the four kaṣāyas. However, the status of those in the ninth and tenth gunasthānas is unclear, for elsewhere