71. By conquering love, hate, and wrong belief he exerts himself for right knowledge, faith, and conduct, then he will cut off the fetters of the eightfold Karman; he will first destroy the twenty-eight kinds of Karman, which are productive of delusion; (then) the five kinds of obstruction to right knowledge , the nine kinds of obstruction to right faith , and the five kinds of obstacles (called Antaraya): the last three remnants of Karman he destroys simultaneously; afterwards he obtains absolute knowledge and faith, which is supreme, full, complete, unchecked, clear, faultless, and giving light (or penetrating) the whole universe; and while he still acts , he acquires but such Karman as is inseparable from religious acts ; the pleasant feelings (produced by it) last but two moments: in the first moment it is acquired, in the second it is experienced, and in the third it is destroyed; this Karman is produced, comes into contact (with the soul), takes rise, is experienced, and is destroyed; for all time to come he is exempt from Karman. (71)

72. Then when his life is spent up to less than

half a muhurta, he discontinues to act, and enters upon the (third degree of) pure meditation , from which there is no relapse (to lower degrees), and which requires most subtile functions only (of his organs); he first stops the functions of his mind, then the functions of speech, then those of the body, at last he ceases to breathe. During the time required for pronouncing five short syllables, he is engaged in the final pure meditation, in which all functions (of his organs) have ceased, and he simultaneously annihilates the four remnants of Karman, viz. vedaniya, ayushka, naman, and gotra . (72)

73. Then having, by all methods, got rid of his audarika, karmana (and taigasa) bodies, the soul takes the form of a straight line, goes in one moment, without touching anything and taking up no space, (upwards to the highest Akasa), and there develops into its natural form, obtains perfection, enlightenment, deliverance, and final beatitude, and puts an end to all misery. (73)

This indeed is the subject of the lecture called exertion in righteousness, which the Venerable Ascetic Mahavira has told, declared, explained, demonstrated. (74)

Thus I say.

Footnotes

^158:1 Here we have no less than ten verbs, many of which are synonyms, with probably no well-defined difference in their meaning. This heaping of synonymous words is a peculiarity of the archaic style. The commentators always labour hard to assign to each word an appropriate meaning, but by sometimes offering different sets of explanations they show that their ingenuity of interpretation was not backed by tradition.

^161:1 Or aversion to the Circle of Births.

^162:1 In this way all paragraphs up to section 72 open with a question of always the same form. I drop the question in the sequel.

^162:2 Atyasatana.