Studies in Jainism

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

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STUDIES IN JAINISM
the stages of srotāpanna and the like of Buddhism, the various stages of ignorance and enlightenment of the Yogavāsistha, the stages of mandabhūmi and the like of the Ājivika school, and the gunasthānas and the yogadrstis of Jainism. 6
We shall describe here not the fourteen gunasthānas, but the three stages into which the gunasthānas can be classified. The first stage is known as the state of the exterior self (bahirātman), wherein there is the total absence of the knowledge of the self or the comprehension of the distinction between the self and the not-self. The second stage is known as the state of the interior self (antarātman), wherein there is the knowledge of the self, but the passions of attachment and hatred, even though they are mild, have not yet lost their hold upon the soul. The third stage is the state of the transcendental self (paramātman). There is absolute destruction of attachment and hatred at this stage, and the soul has attained freedom from the influence of passions (vitaragatva).
LOKA
This science describes the nature of the universe. The universe consists of nothing but the mutual association of the two fundamental principles of jiva (the principle of consciousness) and ajiva (unconscious matter). These two, jiva and ajiva, are eternal entities, which were neither born nor will ever perish. The substance that has its supreme influence on the principle of consciousness in its worldly career is only the pudgala (material atoms), which comes into association with the soul in a number of ways and also delimits its various capacities. But the principle of consciousness has intrinsic and fundamental potencies, which, when properly directed, will eventually emancipate the consciousness from the influence of the material atoms. The universe is nothing but the field of the mutual influence of consciousness and matter, and freedom from this influence is the end of the universe. The Jaina conception
6.
For a fuller discussion of this topic, see author's article in Gujarati on 'Bharatiya Darsanomān Adhyatmika Vikasakrama', in Puratartva, I, p. 199.