Tattvartha Sutra

Author(s): Sukhlal Sanghavi, K K Dixit
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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concept mokṣa standing for emancipation from this cycle were understandably of use, but what was needed besides was just one concept standing for what causes bandha and another one standing for what causes mokṣa. However, certain extraneous considerations necessitated the positing of not two but five concepts besides the fundamental concepts bandha and mokṣa. Thus since fairly olden days asrava was understood as an ordinary man's everyday conduct responsible for involvement in transmigratory cycle, samvara, for an ideal monk's disciplined conduct responsible for emancipation from this cycle; but in the meanwhile were introduced two new concepts punya and papa, the former standing for good acts bringng about a happy rebirth the later for evil acts bringing about an unhappy one. Now it was felt that the two concepts asrava and samvara had one use, the two concepts punya and papa another; and so all the four were retained besides those fundamental concepts bandha and mokṣa. The fifth concept nirjarā was retained for another special reason. Originally the concepts vedana and nirjară stood organically related and the two were prominently emphasized as a Jaina speciality. Thus the Jainas came to conceive karma as a type of physical stuff that got attached to a man's soul as a result of his good and evil acts and get purged off from this soul after the fruit of these acts was reaped. The process of reaping the fruit of a past act was called vedana, the process of karmic physical stuff purging off from a soul was called nirjară. Since it was believed that mokṣa cannot come about unless all past karma is purged off the idea was always understood that a monk's ideal conduct works out massive nirjarā; but in gradual course it began to be emphasized that penance undertaken by a monk (or anybody) is exclusively instrumental in working out massive nirjarā-this type of nirjarā being distinguished from the ordinry type resulting from the fruit of a past act being reaped in an ordinary fashion. In the doctrine of nine tattvas nirjarā was posited besides samvara because the former was taken to stand for the massive nirjarā resulting from a monk's penance, the latter for the mere prevention-of-new-karmic-accumulation resulting from his remaining ideal conduct (as also from his penance). It is this understanding that is behind Umāsvāti's aphorism 9.2 which says about certain ascetic acts that they bring about samvara and his aphorism 9.3 (cf. 8.24) which says about penance that it brings nirjara as well. This aspect of the matter was so much emphasized by certain theoreticians that they went to the extent of maintaining that the pathway to mokṣa