The Buddhist Path to Enlightenment (study)
by Dr Kala Acharya | 2016 | 118,883 words
This page relates ‘twenty-six Parishahas (endurance of hardships)’ of the study on the Buddhist path to enlightenment. The Buddha was born in the Lumbini grove near the present-day border of India and Nepal in the 6th century B.C. He had achieved enlightenment at the age of thirty–five under the ‘Bodhi-tree’ at Buddha-Gaya. This study investigates the teachings after his Enlightenment which the Buddha decided to teach ‘out of compassion for beings’.
The twenty-six Parīṣahas (endurance of hardships)
[Full title: Three Stages (1): Saṃvara (Self-restraint)—(E): The Twenty-six Parīṣahas]
Next comes the Parīṣahas or endurance of hardships without which no one can expect to attain to a thing; for work implies not only waste but endurance as well. A mumukshin soul must ever be prepared to gladly endure all sorts of hardships as consequent on the strain and struggle he has been voluntarily undergoing for the realization of the Highest Good.
The Jain sages have classified in their own ways these various forms of hardships into twenty-two kinds, viz:
(1) Kshutparisaha or endurance of hardship consequent on hunger
(2) on thirst (trisha)
(3) cold (shita)
(4) heat (ushna)
(5) insect bite (dansha mashaka)
(6) nakedness (acheta), i.e., tattered rag
(7) on unfavorable environment (arati)
(8) on the presence of the opposite sex
(9) on constantly shifting from place to place (charya)
(10) on the disadvantages arising from abiding by the rules of conduct in a particular quarter temporarily taken as habitual (nishadya)
(11) on uncomfortable bedding to sleep on (shayya)
(12) on taunts and reproaches (akrosha)
(13) on personal injury (badha)
(14) on begging alms (yachnya)
(15) on disappointment in the begging (alabha)
(17) on thorn-pricks (trima sparsha)
(18) on physical dirt and impurities (mala)
(19) on being indifferent to words of praise and acts of service relative to himself (sat karma)
(20) on the avoidance of the pride of learning (Prajna)
(21) on the avoidance of pain due to the consciousness of his own ignorance (agnana)
(22) on the avoidance of being cast down for not being able to acquire a right-vision into metaphysics of ideas and ideals
Now these are the twenty two Parishahas or forms of endurance which otherwise tell upon a mumukshin jīva so as to cast him away from the right path and conduct without which the progress towards the highest state of being and bliss is held to be impossible.