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Sarvara and Nirjarā
367
B - Nirjara: The dissociation of karman
Though the flow of karmic matter has been checked by a firm dyke that prevents it from penetrating, none the less the jiva's faculties are still obscured by an accumulation of karmas that have not yet reached maturity. When it has come to the end of its own development, each element of karman ripes and falls, detaching itself from the jiva just as a ripe fruit detaches itself from a tree.29 Nisjară means the wearing out of something, exhaustion, destruction. The word in this context means disintegration, dissociation, elimination, the disappearance of the various sorts of karman at different moments and under the influence of sundry factors. This dissociation can be self-induced after a long porcess, the karman ripening slowly, or it can be hastened by an effort of will which, if it is intense and sustained, leads to Liberation.
Nirjarā gives rise to a considerable change in the jiva, who is no longer subject to the servitude imposed by the bandha; even if the said jiva perceives and registers impressions as they present themselves, it experiences no feeling of pleasure or hatred. It is in a state in which they no longer have a hold on it, and this constitutes bhāva-nirjarā.30 The operation by means of which the jiva frees itself from karmic matter is the dravya-nirjarā.31
We reach now the next step in our study which takes in the different aspects of tapas, the chosen means of bringing about nirjarā. Tapas includes a certain number of forms of self-mortisication and penance: six bāhya-tapas or external austerities and six ábhyantaratapas or internal austcritics.32
29 Cf. SamSa 168 (P 309 n. 95).
30 Cf. SamSa 193-197; 218-219.
31 Cf. ADh 11, 42-43; DravSam 36; Y Sas IV, 86.
32 Cf. ADH VII, 4; TS IX, 19-20; UX XXX. Tapas has sundry meanings: heat, fire, fervour, torment, penitence, mortification, austerity. In Vedic literature, in the most ancient texts, the idea of warmth, in the sense of
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