Article: Yogīndu

Mount Girnar
Image by Nilesh Bandhiya © GNU GPL

Paramātma-prakāśa means Light of the Supreme Self. It can be translated also as Light on the Supreme Self by using the figure of speech known as śleṣa – ‘double meaning’. It is a text of 345 stanzas divided into two books, respectively of 126 and 219 stanzas.

The text takes the form of a dialogue in which the pupil Bhaṭṭa Prabhākara asks the master Yogīndu controversial and difficult questions on the true nature of the self or soul.

At that time, the philosophical Digambara tradition and the Hindu school of the Vedānta were rivals. Their thinking was very close because both focused on the search for the nature of the self. The main difference is that the Vedānta school proposes an identification of the self – ātman – with the one universal soul – Brahman. Yogīndu explains, with some so-called Upaniṣadic accents, the true nature of the self and the way to realise the supreme self. The self is an eternal substance. As a substance it has qualities – guṇa – and is subject to modifications – paryāya. Its two main qualities are vision or perception – darśana – and knowledge – jñāna.

The difference between the conventional and absolute points of view is crucial here. It leads Yogīndu to say the opposite of what the doctrine proclaims.

For example, the karma that affects the soul is influenced by merits – puṇya – and demerits – pāpa. Jain lay people tend to concentrate on binding merits, which produce well-being in this life and positive rebirths. Thus Yogīndu states that a wise man should prefer demerits to merits because demerit will give him a small pain but will let the self be free. Merit, on the contrary, will grant him a wonderful experience in this world that will really be a source of worries! Merits lead to prosperity, prosperity to vanity, and vanity to perversity that leads to demerits.

That is why Yogīndu writes (book II, 60) that merits are not at all enviable. Instead of focusing on merits, which can be thought of as a conventional aspect of religion, Yogīndu invites his pupil to focus on the destruction of karma and on knowledge of the self. He says that a pilgrimage to holy places will not save anyone from the transitory cycle of rebirths if it is devoid of knowledge of the self (book I, 85). And that self – ātman – is nothing but the Supreme Self – paramātman. From the conventional point of view, the self undergoes modifications but from the absolute point of view it has only the capacity to see and know. The aspirant must concentrate his thoughts on that purity of the self. The Jains see meditation – dhyāna – and supreme contemplation – samādhi – as a huge fire that will consume the particles of karma that bind to the soul. Hence the importance of meditation in Jain doctrine as helping souls to escape the cycle of rebirth.