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PROBLEM OF AVIDYA
[CH.
world process of which prakrti is the ground. Purusa is drastā (witness) and is pure consciousness (dysimätra) and even though it is eternally pure and unchanging it witnesses the transformations of buddhiwhich is the first evolute of prakrti and the instrument for presenting the objects to the puruşa. In the process of witnessing the activities of the buddhi it loses hold of itself and apparently identifies itself with them. The objective world (drśya) is constituted of the three primal elements or energies, which have been cyclically evolving the subjective and the objective orders of being. These manifest themselves in the subjective plane as pleasure, pain, and dullness-cum-stolidity and in the physical plane as reposeful equilibrium, motion, and inertia. The entire psycho-physical order exists for the enjoyment and final release of the purusa' according as it succeeds in enlisting his interest by its meretricious charms or in disabusing him by the discovery of its unspiritual character as not-self absolutely unattached to the spirit. The twofold world process is guided by a blind teleology and actually subserves the interests of the puruṣa. The relation between the purușa and the prakrti is one of the enjoyer and the enjoyed, the seer and the seen, or the subject and the object. There is no actual relation between them in the ordinary sense of the term. The prakrti unfolds and presents its processes to the purusa through the sense-organs and the buddhi which resembles to a great degree the puruṣa in purity and luminosity. The puruşa's relation to praksti serves to cater for the enjoyment (bhoga) of the former, which consists in illumining and appropriating the world process. And it leads to final release (apavarga) when the puruşa realizes its natural difference and distinction from the world process by realizing its own inalienable spiritual nature. This relation between the inherently pure purusa and the prakrti is beginningless and is due to nescience (avidyā)5 which has been defined to be a perverted knowledge which comprehends non-eternal as eternal, impure as pure, sorrow as pleasure, and nonsoul as soul. The Bhāşya says Avidyā (nescience) is neither knowledge nor negation of knowledge. But it is wrong cognition as opposed to true cognition and as such falls in the category of cogni
i We shall refer to puruşa by the pronoun 'it' as well as 'he' according to our convenience.
2 drașță dịśimātraḥ śuddho 'pi pratyayānupaśyaḥ-YD, II. 20.
3 prakāśa-kriyā-sthiti-śīlam bhūtendriyātmakam bhogāpavargārtham dřśyam. -YD, II. 18; also cf. tadartha eva drśyasyā 'tmā-YD, II. 21.
4 Cf. sva-svāmisaktyoḥ svarūpopalabdhi-hetuḥ samyogah--YD, II. 23. Also cf. Bhäsya thereon: puruṣaḥ svāmi dřśyena svena darśanārtham samyuktah, tasmāt saṁyogād drśyasyo 'palabdhir yā sā bhogah, yā tu drașțuḥ svarūpopalabdhiḥ so 'pavargaḥ. 5 Cf. tasya hetur avidyā---YD, JI. 24.
6 YD, II. 5.
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