Trishashti Shalaka Purusha Caritra

by Helen M. Johnson | 1931 | 742,503 words

This page describes Sermon on the four gatis: humans which is the thirteenth part of chapter IV of the English translation of the Padmaprabha-caritra, contained within the “Trishashti Shalaka Purusha Caritra”: a massive Jain narrative relgious text composed by Hemacandra in the 12th century. Padmaprabha in jainism is one of the 63 illustrious beings or worthy persons.

Part 13: Sermon on the four gatis: humans

Even in the human state people that are born in non-Āryan countries commit various crimes that cannot be told. Even when they are born in Āryan countries, Cāṇḍālas, outcastes, etc. commit various evils and experience pain. Behaving in a non-Āryan manner, though born in an Aryan country, afflicted by pain, poverty, misfortune, they suffer pain. Tormented by the increase of others’ wealth, by the decrease of their own wealth, by service to others, men live in pain. Consumed by disease, old age, and death, afflicted with menial work, wretched people, the abode of compassion, attain their respective unhappy fates. Old age, disease, death, and servitude are not as much the cause of pain, as dwelling in the womb, which resembles dwelling in a terrible hell. The pain of a man divided into hair-like pieces by red-hot needles is multiplied eightfold by that of a person in the womb. The pain which a man suffers in coming from the machine of the womb is infinitely greater than the pain of the embryo-state. A person is never ashamed—in childhood because of processes of elimination, in youth because of sexual acts, in old age because of asthma, cough, etc. First, a pig from uncleanliness, then a donkey because of lust, later an old ox from age, a man is never a man. In childhood he is subject to his mother; in youth subject to a girl; in old age subject to his son; a fool—he is never subject to himself. Disturbed by hope of money, people waste a birth without fruit by work, such as service, ploughing, trade, cattle-tending, etc. So, sometimes theft, sometimes gambling, sometimes base dissoluteness, is the cause of people, alas! wandering again in another birth.

Blinded by delusion, people spend a birth in love-dalliance, if happy; if unhappy, in lamentations about their misery; but not in righteous acts. Wicked people, when they have reached this human state which is able to destroy an endless heap of karma, commit crimes. Evil acts in a human-birth—the receptacle of the three jewels, knowledge, faith, and conduct—are like wine in a golden dish. When a human birth has been won with difficulty by people in the ocean of existence, like the union of the yoke pin and the yoke, alas! it is lost like a jewel. When a human birth, which is the means of attaining heaven and emancipation has been gained, alas! people occupy themselves with actions that are the means of attaining hell. When a human birth, which is earnestly hoped for even by the gods in Anuttara,[1] has been achieved by wicked people, it is joined to wicked acts. Pain in hell is known indirectly (parokṣa); pain in human birth is known directly (pratyakṣa). Its manifestation has been described. What is the use of amplification?

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

See above, p. 124. Emancipation can be reached only from a human birth. Gods must be born again as mortals.

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