Essence Of Jaina Scriptures

SR No.: 022313
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jagdish Prasad Jain
Publisher: Kaveri Books
Publication Year: 2014
Total Pages: 508
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 38 MB

Page 235

SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT CONCEPTS
209
Immunity from the contagion of the above two upayogas is the characteristic of pure manifestation of consciousness (shuddha upayoga) which is not open to karmic influx (156, 245) and leads to the annihilation of all the miseries (181). The soul with this upayoga develops religious experience (dharma), which is a spiritual state of transcendental, self-born, super-sensuous, unparalled, indestructible. .. happiness (13-14). In Shuddhopayoga the physical pains are no more, and one knowing the nature of reality is above attachment and aversion. . . he is equanimous (7, 78). 2. The Principle of Knowledge
Really speaking, the soul (atman) is the knower and essentially an embodiment of knowledge (127, 28 etc.). Knowledge is the self, and knowledge cannot subsist anywhere else than in the self; self and knowledge are co-extensive, neither less nor more (23); if the self is smaller, then knowledge being insentient cannot function; if larger, it cannot know in the absence of knowledge (24-5). In a sense, however, the self can be taken as wider than knowkedge (27), because it has other characteristics like sukha (happiness), virya (vigour), etc. In view of its being an embodiment of knowledge, the soul is capable of knowing itself, objects other than itself and the combinatory products of the two (36). But this essential knowing ability of the soul is crippled because of its long association with karmic matter (in the form of knowledge-obscuring karman, etc.); and it has come to possess the sense-organs (55, 145). The senses are material in nature (paudgalika) and hence foreign to the real nature of the soul. Whatever is apprehended through the senses is indirect (paroksha), because the soul is not directly apprehending the object of knowledge; that would be direct apprehension (pacchakkham vinnanam) when the soul apprehends all by itself without the aid of senses (56-58). The sense-perception is graded and mediate (ajugavam and parokkham), because it has four stages: outliner grasp (avagraha), discrimination (iha), judgement (avaya) and retention (dharana) (40).
After manifesting pure consciousness when the soul becomes free from knowledge-obscuring, conation-obscuring, obstructive and deluding karmas, it comes to be self-constituted and possessed of omniscience (15-16). This omniscience is supersensuous; therein the apprehension of the objectivity takes place directly by the soul without