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[CH.
NON-ABSOLUTISTIC ATTITUDE OF THE JAINAS
experience. Substance is merely a creation of the staticizing tendency of the human mind which itself, on analysis, is found to be nothing but an ever renewing aggregate of consciousness, feeling, perception (sañjñā) and coefficients of consciousness (saṁskāra). The evil passions of lobha (greed), dosa (aversion) and moha (delusion), which a human being shares in common with animals, constitute bondage of existence. Rational life is actuated by a-lobha (absence of greed), a-dosa (absence of aversion) and a-moha (absence of delusion). Emancipation means freedom from evil passions. Life, as it is, is an evil, and to get rid of evil is to get rid of life. In this context emancipation means freedom from all life. Faith in the continuation of pure. untainted consciousness after emancipation is as much a heresy as the faith in a permanent substance called soul (ātmā). With the cessation of the tṛṣṇa (craving) ceases the vijñāna (consciousness) even as the flame of a lamp is extinguished (by the exhaustion of oil, wick etc.).1
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The Buddha expounded the four noble truths (cattari āriyasaccāni) of sorrow (dukkha), causal chain of sorrow (dukkhasamudaya), cessation of sorrow (dukkha-nirodha) and the path leading to the cessation of sorrow (dukkha-nirodha-gāminī pațipada)." Birth, decay, disease, death, bewailings etc. are all nothing but sorrow. Non-fulfilment of desires also is sorrow. In brief, the aggregate of rūpa (form), vedana (feeling) etc., that springs from strong attachment is sorrow. This is the first noble truth of sorrow. The causal chain of avidya (ignorance), samskāra (tendencies), vijñāna (consciousness) etc. explains the origin of the aggregate of sorrow. This is the second truth which finds out the original cause of this sorrowful existence. By the cessation of the cause, the effect naturally ceases. The second truth thus leads to the discovery of the third which is called dukkhanirodha (cessation of sorrow). When the cause is known, the effect can be eliminated by eliminating the cause. What originates must cease. If suffering is a fact and if it is determined by welldefined conditions, it goes without saying that there must be cessation of suffering. The third truth can thus be considered as only a corollary of the first two. The fourth truth lays down the path to freedom or emancipation. It is called the eightfold path (aṭṭhangiko maggo). It consists of right view (sammā-diṭṭhi), right resolution (samma-samkappo), proper words (samma-vācā), proper action (sammăkammanta), proper means of livelihood (sammā-ājīva), proper exertion (sammā-vāyāma), mindfulness in the right way (sammā-sati) and proper meditation (samma-samadhi). Of these the first two relate to
1 Cf. viññāṇassa nirodhena tanhakkhayavimuttino pajjotasseva nibbānam vimokkho hoti cetaso ti. -ANI, III. 89. 2 (Pt. I, p. 236, PTS).
2 Ibid., III. 61. 6; et seq.
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