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The First Steps on the Path
great importance, because it conduces to a common renewal and the maintenance of this attitude as a community.38 38
E- Käyotsarga: Renunciation of attachment to one's own body
The four preceding avaśyakas were laying special stress on the question of inner attitude, while at the same time taking into consideration the totality of the human being and in particular the body; this last, being matter, and thus a constant source, through the sense-organs and their activities, of karmic penetration, must be mastered. It is the body, furthermore, that, through gestures and appropriate postures such as express and reflect the right inner orientation, performs the rites.
327
The fifth avaśyaka, kāyotsarga, stresses in first place the specific bodily attitude conducive to inner purification, to concentration, in a word, to a consciousness of the jiva (ātman) -kāya (the body, matter) duality.39
39
The inner attitude adopted in kayaotsarga corresponds to that which the sages call: renunciation of all mamatva-bhāva, that is, the basic disposition which renounces all forms of possession, of making things one's own, of appropriating them; this, if adopted with an absolute rigourousness which pushes non-possession to an extreme, means renunciation and abandonment of the body.40 We must now study the meaning, nature and various aspects and implications of this type of renunciation and also see how kayotsarga is closely linked with the other avaśyakas and spiritual activities.
38 For nama-pratikramaṇa etc., cf. ADh VIII, 57-61; MA I, 26.
39 As we mentioned at the beginning, the Digambara tradition lists kayotsarga as last of the avaśyakas; here we are following the order given by the AvaS.
40 Cf. MA I, 28.
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