Harmless Soul

SR No.: 001196
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: W J Johnson, Dayanand Bhargav
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas
Publication Year: 1995
Total Pages: 372
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, & Principle
File Size: 20 MB

Page 100

86 Harmless Souls state, the only way of confirming it or expressing it, either to oneself or to others, is through external conduct. (I shall return to this idea in my discussion of Kundakunda.) 14
As P.S. Jaini remarks, 'even the clerics of many religions do not live so strict a life as these rules [of lay conduct] demand'.15 Consequently, as he goes on to say:
the partial vratas and the pratimās, while theoretically set down for all laymen, tend to constitute an ideal path followed only by a highly select few ... it is a rare individual who actually vows to accept the restraints or perform the holy activities described there. 16
It is clear from this situation - one which only develops fully in the post-Umāsvāti period - that Umāsvāti's internalization of discipline, through his kasāya doctrine, does not or is not allowed to influence ascetic behaviour. In so far as the monk or advanced lay person takes on internalized doctrines, he does so in addition to his original vrata, not instead of the latter or as a version of them.
A further consideration which may be mentioned here - again, I shall return to it in my discussion of Kundakunda - is the 'ritualisation' of ascetic conduct. By this I mean the idea that if one follows the prescribed action to the letter, the result in the Jaina case, liberation) is guaranteed. Correct thinking and correct feeling may be essential to the correctitude of a ritual, but the only way these can be monitored or expressed is through external behaviour. The īryāpatha-sāmparāyika division in the Viyāhapannatti apparently reflects at least a degree of such ritualisation. There the initial division between the two modes of āsrava / karma is not so much based upon the results of two modes of behaviour available to the same individual, as upon the institutional distinction between two modes of life,
14 See, for example, pp. 217-224, below. 15 JPP p. 188.
16 Ibid.