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168
PROBLEM OF AVIDYA
is not bondage (bandha). There can be emancipation from knowledge about a few objects, provided it is devoid of delusion (moha)." Bondage depends upon delusion. If there is delusion, there is bondage. If there is no delusion, there is no bondage. Here delusion (moha) means the deluding (mohaniya) karman2 and not wrong cognition. On the destruction of this deluding karman, bandha (bondage) is no more possible and omniscience necessarily dawns. The Jainas do not give much importance to knowledge in the attainment of freedom from bondage. The soul is to be purified of the mohaniya (deluding) karman, that is, of the karmans that defile and vitiate the attitude and the conduct of the soul. If this purity is attained, knowledge naturally dawns. Knowledge is the nature of the soul, and as such cannot but dawn when the soul is made absolutely clean of the karmans that obstructed the perfect expression of vision and conduct.
We have given a faithful representation of the Jaina's criticism of of its the Naiyayika's conception of emancipation and the means attainment. In fairness to the Naiyayikas, it must be admitted that they have been fully cognizant of the necessity of moral purification and the purgation of all evil dispositions and volitional tendencies which characterize the impure and imperfect life in bondage. The Naiyayikas have, however, laid emphasis upon the supreme efficacy of correct knowledge of reality for the achievement of this objective. They think and assert that with the dawn of the knowledge of the true nature of the self, all our volitional perversities and angularities and moral twists will become automatically straightened and corrected and the cessation of bondage will occur without a hitch. The Jaina here differs from the Naiyayika. He does not deny that true knowledge is an essential condition of salvation, but he asserts that the moral regeneration, which is also recognized by the Naiyayika to be the condition of salvation, cannot be an automatic product of knowledge. It is necessary to cultivate moral perfection by means of various penances and practices of asceticism to get rid of our immoral and volitional dispositions and perversities. The Jainas make moral discipline and subjugation of the will a coordinate condition of salvation along with knowledge. This seems to be an essential divergence of the Jainas from the Naiyayikas.
[CH.
Another point of divergence about the means is that the Jainas stress the necessity of omniscience as the antidote of ignorance and
1 ajñānan mohino bandho na 'jñānād vītamohataḥ
jñānastokāc ca mokṣaḥ syad amohan mohino 'nyatha-Ibid., 98.
2 Mohaniyakarman mainly consists in mithyatva (perversity) and the kaşaya (passions). Vide infra, Chap. IV. Section III, 2nd paragraph.
3 This
refers to sthitibandha and anubhaga-bandha which are due to Vide infra, Chap. IV. Section III, 3rd paragraph.
kaṣāya.
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