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TATTVĀRTHA SŪTRA
augments its harshness, whatever prolongs the craving for a gross life—therein lies the character-of-being-a-defilement as attributed to violence. On the other hand, whatever does not augment the harshness in question and does not in the least disturb a natural loving disposition of mind and a life oriented inwards—all that, even if outworldly appearing like violence, is of the form of nota-defilement. 8.
The Nature of Untruthfulness :
To speak what is a-sat (that is, false or improper) that is untruthfulness. 9.
Though in this aphorism speaking the a-sat has alone been called untruthfulness the phrase should be understood in a broad sense so that its meaning equally includes both thinking the a-sat and practising the a-sat; hence it is that the defilement designated untruthfulness covers speaking the a-sat, thinking the a-sat as well as practising the a-sat. Just as in the definition of violence so also in that of untruthfulness and of the remaining defilements like taking-what-is-not given (i.e. theft)? etc. the qualification due to an act involving negligence' has to be understood as superadded. Thus the net meaning of the aphorism is 'speaking the a-sat, thinking the a-sat or practising the a-sat which is due to an act involving negligence—that is untruthfulness.'
Here it will do to attribute two chief meanings to the word a-sat :
(1) To utterly deny the existence of a thing that does actually exist or while not denying its existence to describe it as it does not in fact exist—that is speaking the a-sat.
(2) To speak what is true but what causes distress to another person, it being accompanied by a mental ill-feeling directed
1. The qualification is not to be superadded in the case of the defilement of incontinence; for it is quite impossible for this defilement to occur in a state of non-negligence. That exactly is why the vrata of continence is said to be such as brooks no exception whatsoever. For details of the matter see the Gujarati essay "Jainadrstie Brahmacarya."
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