Heart of Jainism

SR No.: 011099
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Mrs Sinclair Stevenson
Publisher: Mrs Sinclair Stevenson
Publication Year: 1915
Total Pages: 365
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 29 MB

Page 170

144
THE NINE CATEGORIES OF
of the great contrasts between the teaching of Mahāvīra, who, good and great as he was, taught a system, the logical outcome of which is death, and that of the Founder of Christianity, who came that His followers might have life, and have it abundantly.1
The five Samiti.
The Sixth Category: Samvara.
We now come to the sixth principle of Jaina philosophy, which is the converse of the fifth, the way, namely, in which the inflow of karma into the soul can be impeded. The karma that has already been acquired can be dissipated and so liberation attained, if only no new karma accrue : 'As a large tank, when its supply of water has been stopped, gradually dries up by the consumption of the water and by evaporation, so the Karman of a monk, which he acquired in millions of births, is annihilated by austerities, if there is no influx of bad karman.' 2
The fifty
seven
The Jaina themselves consider this principle of Samvara of supreme importance, and it contains matter that is more ways of impeding often quoted by them than anything else. Long and weari
karma.
some as we shall find the lists it contains of the fifty-seven ways of impeding karma, yet they are worth our study, for, having already learnt what the Jaina mean by sin, we shall now learn what they mean by holiness.
The first five ways of arresting the inflow of karma refer to outward behaviour. A man who would be holy must observe the greatest care whenever he walks anywhere not to injure any living thing (Irya samiti). This rule is, of course, specially binding on all monks and nuns, for the Jaina have a comfortably lower standard for the laity. Ascetics must enter and leave their monasteries with the greatest care, lest they step on any insect; they must, wherever possible, avoid field-paths and keep to highways, where an animal or an insect can be more casily seen and avoided; they must walk miles round rather than cross 1 St. John x. 10. 2 S. B. E., xlv, p. 174.