The Jaina have a special reason for the way they arrange the eight karma: they say that the first thing necessary is knowledge (jñāna); without this we cannot behold the true faith (darśana); if we possess both knowledge and faith, we are indifferent to pain or pleasure (vedanīya); mohanīya follows, because through pleasure or fear of pain we may become entangled in worldly attachments; that is the chief cause which determines the length of each imprisonment (āyu); when this has been determined, there still remains to be decided the state in which we shall be imprisoned (nāma); on that again depends the caste and family (gotra); and a man’s caste and family are after all either his greatest help or his greatest hindrance (antarāya).
The eight karma are also classified into the Ghātin karma, which can only be destroyed with great labour, and which include Jñānāvaraṇīya, Darśanāvaraṇīya, Mohanīya and Antarāya karma: and the Aghātin karma, namely Vedanīya, Āyu, Nāma and Gotra karma, which, important as their results are, can yet be more easily destroyed. The Jaina say that if the Ghātin are once burnt up in the burning glow of austerities (tapa), the Aghātin can be snapped as easily as a piece of burnt string.[1]
The Jaina also divide karma according to the period when it was acquired, is being experienced, or will be experienced. The karma which we accumulated in past lives they call Sattā; that which we are even now in this present life sowing, and of which we shall reap the harvest in a future
- ↑ Here again will be noticed a difference from the interpretation of Govindānanda (who thinks four karma ‘are of use to enable one to know the truth; therefore they are Aghātins, i.e. not injurious, favourable’); and from Dr. Bhandarkar, who considers the Ghātin Karman to mean ‘the disabling Karmans’. Loc. cit., pp. 97 n. and 93.
