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Sukla dhyāna
271
ticians were sooner or later compelled to formulate the Jaioa method of dhyāna. Here they faced the problem of liberation at the late canonical age. And the sukla dhyāna of the Jainas came to be formulated in this context. With this background in mind, let us see what is the nature and mechanism of śukla dhyāna with a view to finding out how it came to be formulated.
The sage on the upasama śreņi performs pịthak tva dhyāna and acquires ?ddhis. But his suppressed mohaniya karmas get activiated due to his attachment to the acquired qddhis, and he immediately falls to the 1st stage of mithyātva. All this is said to occur within a samaya - antarmuhūrta. The sage who takes the kşapaka śreņi likewise performs pythaktva vitarka dhyāna and acquires çddhis, then he roots out his mohaniya karmas. Now he has crossed the 11th gunasthāna and entered the 12th guņasthāna. Here he performs ekatva vitarka dhyāna and destroys all the rest of the three ghātika karmas and attains omniscience. Or it is possible that the total operations on this ksapaka śreņi are performed by ekatva vitarka dhyāna. Kșapaka śreņi is said to end within antarmuhūrta.
In brief, pịthaktva vitarka dhyāna is capable to produce ddhis and is possibly able to eradicate mohaniya karmas. But ekatva vitarka dhyāna is able to produce çddhis, eradicate ghātika karmas and produce omniscience to a sage. Now, psthaktva viturka and ekatva vitarka dhyānas roughly correspond to the beginning stages of samprajñāta samadhi in the Yoga System and to the rudimentary stages of the first dhyāna (ārūpya) of the Buddhists. It is very curious here why the then Jaina theoreticians had to adopt these comparatively lower stages of dhyāna in the other schools and allot to them the high capacities as such.
Logically speaking, the manifestation of kevala jñāna and darśana should require the eradication of jñānāvarana and darśanāvaraṇa karmas. However, the then Jaina karma specia. Jists had to add to them antarāya karma also, because all the
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