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VICTORY OVER SEX (A Technique of Spiritual Science)
-J. S. Zaveri -Muni Mahendra Kumar
The authors of this article are presently engaged in translating and annotating the Jain canonical literature. At the moment, the work in hand is that of SOYAGADO. The fourth chapter is Victory over Sex" in which Bhagavān Mahāvīra has shown an unarnbiguous process of victory over sex, which can be expressed in modern scientific terminology. Truths known to philosophy and science can now be woven together for the benefit of mankind. It is necessary. however, that the ancient methodology of disseminating knowledge and their interpretations of the eternal wisdom be expanded, modified and restated in terms that encompass newly-discovered scientific facts.
It may be added that the authors are quite adept in this particular type of studies and Jain Vishva Bharati Institute has recently published some of their works. --Ed.)
"ओए सया ण रज्जेज्जा, भोगकामी पुणो विरमेज्जा । भोगे समणाण सुणेहा, जह भुंजंति भिक्खुणो एगे ॥"
Suyagado (1), 4/32. "The wise ascetic who aspires to be solitary-free from attachment and aversion--must never be infatuated by sexual pleasures. If harassed by a desire for such pleasures, he should overcome it (first by countermanding its insistence and then by transmuting it by internal austerities). Listen to the wretched) state of the degraded ascetic who succumbed to such desires." Significance
The IVth chapter of Suyagado (1), is a highly significant one as it deals with a primordial unlearned instinct viz. the sexual impulse (kāma-vāsanā). Victory over sex is as fundamental to the path of final emancipation as sex is to worldly life. The chapter is divided into two sections. The first one shows how a promiscuous member of the so-called weaker sex could drag an unwary ascetic into degradation and keep him bogged down in the quagmire of sensual pleasures. The second section is mostly devoted to the description of the ludicrous but at the same time pathetic condition of the
