Tattvartha Sutra

Author(s): Umaswati, Umaswami, Manu Doshi
Publisher: Shrutratnakar Ahmedabad

Page 25

Chapter 1
KNOWLEDGE
Every living being desires to live happily and endeavors accordingly. But the concept of happiness varies with the level of physical and spiritual development. Based upon their concepts, the living beings can be classified in two broad categories of those who seek material happiness and those who seek spiritual one. The first category looks for worldly pleasure, which depends upon the external situations like access to the relevant objects, capability of the sense organs to avail them etc. The second category aspires to gain the lasting bliss, which arises from within and hence is not dependent upon the external factors. The dependent pleasure is termed as Käm and the independent one is termed as Moksha.
The Indo-Aryan philosophy classifies all endeavors into four categories pertaining to i) Dharma (moral values), ii) Artha (economic aspects), iii) Käm (worldly pleasure) and iv) Moksha (liberation). All such endeavors are termed as Purushärtha. Those pertaining to Käm and Moksha are the objectives, while those concerned with Artha and Dharma are the means for attaining the same. Since the objective of Käm happens to be transitory, one should really endeavor for the