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Chapter 1
At the starting-point, a vista of the path:
The ratnatraya, the Three Jewels
samyak-darśana samyak-jñāna samyak-căritra mokṣā-mārgaḥ
right vision, right knowledge, right conduct (constitute) the path leading to Liberation. 12
Jaina doctrine used the term ratnatraya, the Three Jewels, for these three distinct and yet inseparable aspects of the spiritual path leading to mokşa.13 Before attempting to define ratnatraya we must first adopt a fundamentally Jaina perspective by taking cognisance of the two nayas or points of view, complementary angles of vision: vyavahāra and niscaya. Vyavahära, a word often used in contemporary parlance, means: conduct, comportment, in the sense of: way of being, behaviour towards persons and things, that which comprises the uninterrupted flow of action in everyday life. Niscaya means: certainty, exact knowledge, and also, decision, determination. The word implies something absolute. Starting from these normal and agreed definitions, the ācāryas, at least certain ones among them, have imparted to each of these words particular shades of meaning in its own particular context. Thus: vyavahāra denotes the way of conceiving and regarding substances according to distinctions, aspects, modalities, forms and anything else which may be an object
12 samyag-darśana-jñāna-caritrāņi mokşa-mārgaḥ. TS 1,1.
13 Cf. US XXVIII, 2 where tapas (austerity) is added to the Three Jewels; in point of fact tapas, both external and internal, is one of the virtues leading to nirjară, the disintegration and elimination of karman. We may add that justification for adding tapas to the Three Jewels resides in the fact that only the human being can attain Liberation - and that precisely because of his capacity to practise austerity of which the loftiest form is dhyana, mental concentration; cf. P 367 ff.
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