Studies in Jainism

Author(s): Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture Culcutta
Publisher: Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture Culcutta

Page 74

SOME FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF JAINISM
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of unbroken succession, the association of karma or avidyā or māyā with the soul is beginningless, but the association, as a case of particular occurrence, has a beginning, because we clearly feel that the karma or the predisposition (vāsanā) repeatedly originates in our life from ignorance and the passions of attachment and hatred. The reason why karma or predisposition can no more originate in the absolutely pure self, which emerges on the complete dissociation of karma, is that the soul has a natural tendency for purity, and such defects as ignorance and the passions of attachment and hatred are totally uprooted on the fullest expression of its intrinsic attributes, such as consciousness and the like, on account of absolute purification.
CARITRA The function of religious conduct (căritra) is to remove the conditions of the state of inequality existing in our life, and such conduct is known as samvara (self-control) in Jainism. Ignorance, the root cause of the state of inequality, is destroyed by the real comprehension of the nature of the self, and such passions as attachment and hatred are removed by the fulfilment of the attitude of indifference (mādhyasthya). The spiritual conduct therefore consists in these two factors: (1) knowledge of the self, or comprehension of the distinction between the self and the not-self (samyag-darsana or viveka-khyāti); and (2) absolute indifference to, or conquest of, the passions of attachment and hatred. Only such activities as self-concentration, vows, principles of self-control and austerity, which help the growth of the internal spiritual conduct, are regarded as forming the code of external conduct for the spiritual aspirant.
The evolution of spiritual life depends upon the gradual development of the internal spiritual conduct. Jainism gives a very vivid and elaborate description of this development in its doctrine of the stages of spiritual development (gunasthanas). Anyone interested in the stages of spiritual evolution will find it useful and interesting to compare such stages as the madhumati and the like of the Yoga system,