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The Historical Development of Jaina Yoga System and Impacts of Other Yoga-Systems on it A Comparative and Critical Study
Sagarmal JAIN
Jainism, like the other religions of Indian origin attaches supreme importance to Yoga and dhyāna (meditation) as a means to spiritual advancement and emancipation. According to the Uttarādhyayanasūtra, one can know the real nature of self through right knowledge, one can have faith on it through right vision or right attitude. Similarly one can have control over it through right conduct, but the purification of the self can only be achieved through right tapas.' As per Janism tapas (penance) has two supreme wings, which are known as dhyāna (meditation or concentration) and kāyotsarga i.e. non-attachment towards one's own body as well as all worldly belongings. Jainas believe that emancipation, which is the ultimate goal of our life, can only be achieved by śukla-dhyāna, which is the state of pure self-awareness or knowership. Thus according to Jainism emancipation can only be achieved by dhyāna, which is also the seventh step of Patañjali's Yoga system. Thus we can say that dhyāna and Yoga are the essential factors of Jaina religious practices. All the images of Jaina Tīrthankaras are only in meditative posture and not any other posture:
Sofar as the development of Jaina Yoga studies in our times in India and abroad is concerned, Nathamal Tatia and Pandit Sukhalalji have devoted a full chapter on Jaina Yoga and meditation, in their works Samadarsi Haribhadra and Studies in Jaina philosophy, respectively. R. Williams has written a book entitled Jaina Yoga, but in this book he mainly discussed the Jaina ethics and moral code and little about Jaina Yoga. For him Jaina Yoga means the Jaina path of emancipation. In present days some works in Hindi on Jaina Yoga have also been written, among which the first and foremost are Jaina Yoga and Preksa meditation of Muni Nathamal, the late Ācārya Mahāprajña. Dr. A.B. Dige's Ph.D. thesis on Jaina Yoga also has been published by the P.V. Research Institute, Varanasi. In recent days two Ph.D. thesis, Meditation and Yoga in Jaina sadhana and Historical development of Jaina Meditation from Mahavira to Mahaprajna written by two Jaina nuns under my guidance have also been published. I have also written a work on Jaina Tantrika-Sadhana in Hindi in which I have shown the historical development and impact of other Yoga systems on Jaina
Uttarādhyayanasūtra 28/35.
