Jaina Sutras Part IIJainismAccepted ScripturePrakritShareUttaradhyayana Sutra 3Hermann Jacobi / SBE vol. 45 - EnglishMoreVersion - 1 availableHermann Jacobi / SBE vol. 45LanguageEnglishEspañol‹Uttaradhyayana Sutra 1Uttaradhyayana Sutra 2Uttaradhyayana Sutra 3Uttaradhyayana Sutra 4Uttaradhyayana Sutra 5Uttaradhyayana Sutra 6Uttaradhyayana Sutra 7Uttaradhyayana Sutra 8Uttaradhyayana Sutra 9Uttaradhyayana Sutra 10Uttaradhyayana Sutra 11Uttaradhyayana Sutra 12Uttaradhyayana Sutra 13Uttaradhyayana Sutra 14Uttaradhyayana Sutra 15Uttaradhyayana Sutra 16Uttaradhyayana Sutra 17Uttaradhyayana Sutra 18Uttaradhyayana Sutra 19Uttaradhyayana Sutra 20Uttaradhyayana Sutra 21Uttaradhyayana Sutra 22Uttaradhyayana Sutra 23Uttaradhyayana Sutra 24Uttaradhyayana Sutra 25Uttaradhyayana Sutra 26Uttaradhyayana Sutra 27Uttaradhyayana Sutra 28Uttaradhyayana Sutra 29Uttaradhyayana Sutra 30Uttaradhyayana Sutra 31Uttaradhyayana Sutra 32Uttaradhyayana Sutra 33Uttaradhyayana Sutra 34Uttaradhyayana Sutra 35Uttaradhyayana Sutra 36Sutrakritanga Sutra, First Book 1.1Sutrakritanga Sutra, First Book 1.2Sutrakritanga Sutra, First Book 1.3Sutrakritanga Sutra, First Book 1.4Sutrakritanga Sutra, First Book 1.5Sutrakritanga Sutra, First Book 1.6Sutrakritanga Sutra, First Book 1.7Sutrakritanga Sutra, First Book 1.8Sutrakritanga Sutra, First Book 1.9Sutrakritanga Sutra, First Book 1.10Sutrakritanga Sutra, First Book 1.11Sutrakritanga Sutra, First Book 1.12Sutrakritanga Sutra, First Book 1.13Sutrakritanga Sutra, First Book 1.14Sutrakritanga Sutra, First Book 1.15Sutrakritanga Sutra, First Book 1.16Sutrakritanga Sutra, Second Book 2.1Sutrakritanga Sutra, Second Book 2.2Sutrakritanga Sutra, Second Book 2.3Sutrakritanga Sutra, Second Book 2.4Sutrakritanga Sutra, Second Book 2.5Sutrakritanga Sutra, Second Book 2.6Sutrakritanga Sutra, Second Book 2.7›Uttaradhyayana Sutra: Third Lecture - The Four RequisitesUttaradhyayana Sutra 3ListenPlay this chapter in spoken English.Save chapterListen to chapter1THIRD LECTURE. THE FOUR REQUISITES. Four things of paramount value are difficult to obtain here by a living being: human birth, in- struction in the Law, belief in it, and energy in self-control, (i) I. The universe is peopled by manifold creatures, who are, in this Saws^ra, born in different families and castes for having done various actions. (2) Sometimes they go to the world of the gods, sometimes to the hells, sometimes they become Asuras in accordance with their actions. (3) Sometimes they become Kshattriyas, or Ara«fl^5.1as and Bukkasas, or worms and moths, or (insects called) Kunthu ^ and ants. (4) Thus living beings of sinful actions, who are born again and again in ever-recurring births, are not disgusted with the SawsSra, but they are like warriors (never tired of the battle of life). (5) Living beings bewildered through the influence of their actions, distressed and suffering pains, undergo misery in non-human births. (6) But by the cessation of Karman, perchance, living ‘ About the Kunthu see below, Thirty-sixth Lecture, v. 138 and note. i6 beings will reach in due time a pure state and be born as men. (7) II. And though they be born with a human body, it will be difficult for them to hear the Law, having heard which they will do penances, combat their passions and abstain from killing living beings. (8) III. 2And though, by chance, they may hear the Law, it will be difficult for them to believe in it ; many who are shown the right way, stray from it. (9) IV. And though they have heard the Law and believe in it, it is difficult for them to fulfill it strenuously; many who approve of the religion, do not adopt it. (10) Having been born as a man, having heard the Law, believing in it, and fulfilling it strenuously, an ascetic should restrain himself and shake off sinfulness, (ii) The pious obtain purity, and the pure stand firmly in the Law : (the soul afterwards) reaches the highest Nirviwa, being like unto a fire fed with ghee. (12) Leave off the causes of sin, acquire fame through patience ! (A man who acts up to this) will rise to the upper regions after having left this body of clay. (13) The Yakshas who are gifted with various virtues, (live in the heavenly regions, situated) one above the other, shining forth like the great luminaries, and hoping never to descend thence. (14) Intent on enjoying divine pleasures and changing their form at will, they live in the upper Kalpa heavens many centuries of former' years. (15) ' One ‘former’ (pfirva) year consists of 7,560 millions of common years. 3The idea that years were longer when the world was still young, is apparently suggested by the experience which everybody will have made, that a year seemed to us an enormously long time when we were young, and the same space of time LECTURE III. The Yakshas, having remained there according to their merit, descend thence at the expiration of their life and are born as men. Men are of ten kinds. (16) Fields and houses, gold, cattle, slaves and servants: where these four goods, the causes of pleasure, are present, in such families he is born \ (i 7) He will have friends and relations, be of good family, of fine complexion, healthy, wise, noble, famous, and powerful. (18) After having enjoyed, at their proper time, the unrivalled pleasures of human life, he will obtain true knowledge by his pure religious merit acquired in a former life. (19) appears to us shorter and shorter as we advance in life. A similar analogy with our life has probably caused the belief in the four ages of the world, shared by the Hindus and the ancients. For does not childhood to most of us appear the happiest period of our life, and youth better still than the time of full-grown manhood ? As in retrospect our life appears to us, so primitive man imagines the life of the world to have been : 4the first age was the best and the longest, and the following ages grew worse and worse, and became shorter at thu same time. This primitive conceit was by the ancients combined with the conceit of the year, so that the four ages were compared with the four seasons of the year. Something similar seems to have happened in India, where, however, there are three or six seasons^ For the (?ainas seem to have originally divided one Eon into six minor periods. Now the year was frequently compared to a wheel, and this second metaphor was worked out by the (?ainas. They named the six minor periods aras, literally spokes of a wheel, and divided the whole Eon into one descending part (of the wheel), avasarpirri, and one part, utsarpiKi. These Avasarpuris and Utsarpiwis are probably a later improvement, and the Eon originally contained but six Aras. But if there were indeed twelve Aras from the beginning, they must have been suggested by the twelve months of the year. ‘ This is the first of the ten kinds of men mentioned above; the remaining nine are enumerated in the following verse. [45] C i8 Perceiving that the four requisites are difficult to obtain, he will apply himself to self-control, and when by penances he has shaken off the remnant of Karman, he will become an eternal Siddha. (20) Thus I say. ‹Previous chapterUttaradhyayana Sutra 2Next chapterUttaradhyayana Sutra 4›Similar passagesBy tradition and source labelFind similarCompare selectedCompare with similarAsk Deep ThoughtSelect passages to search for parallels.Tap any verse to select it, then compare selected passages or ask Deep Thought. Public-domain 1895 English translation