RBSE VU Jain Darshan flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Jina

'Conqueror'; a being who has destroyed the four ghātiyā karmas (knowledge-obscuring, perception-obscuring, deluding, obstructing) and attained omniscience; from this term 'Jaina' derives.

Tīrthaṅkara

A ford-maker who establishes the fourfold community (monks, nuns, laymen, laywomen) and revives the dharma; Jains revere 24, from Ṛṣabhanātha to Mahāvīra.

Śramaṇa tradition

Non-Vedic ascetic currents including Jainism, Buddhism, and Ājīvika, which reject the authority of the Vedas and emphasize renunciation, austerity, and personal effort over ritual.

Pramāṇa

Valid, doubt-free cognition of an object as it is; Jain epistemology divides it into pratyakṣa (direct) and parokṣa (indirect), with anumāna and āgama as parokṣa forms.

Naya

A partial standpoint grasping one aspect of a multifaceted object; valid when acknowledged as partial, false (nayābhāsa) when claimed as the whole truth.

Saptabhaṅgī

The seven-fold predication of syādvāda: syād asti, syān nāsti, syād asti nāsti, syād avaktavya, and the three combinations with avaktavya, each qualified by 'in a certain respect'.

Anekāntavāda

The doctrine that reality possesses infinite attributes and is many-sided; no single unconditional judgment exhausts it, so apparent contradictions are resolved by standpoint.

Dravya

A substance defined as sat, possessing simultaneous origination, destruction, and permanence; it supports qualities (guṇa) and modes (paryāya) without losing its essential nature.

Paryāya

A transient mode or modification of a substance and its qualities; paryāyas arise and perish while the underlying dravya persists, illustrating the utpāda-vyaya-dhrauvya triad.

Dharma and adharma dravya

Two formless, non-conscious substances that are not motion and rest but the indifferent conditions (upagrāhaka) that assist jīva and pudgala to move and to rest.

Pudgala

The only material substance, characterized by touch, taste, smell, and color; its indivisible unit is paramāṇu, and aggregates (skandha) form bodies, speech, mind, and objects.

Kārmaṇa varganā

The subtlest class of material clusters, suited to being bound to the jīva as karma; karmic matter is thus pudgala, not a mere moral abstraction.

Ghātiyā karma

The four karmas that obscure or obstruct the soul's intrinsic qualities: jñānāvaraṇīya, darśanāvaraṇīya, mohanīya, and antarāya; their destruction yields kevala.

Bandha

The binding of karmic matter to the jīva, caused by mithyātva, avirati, pramāda, kaṣāya, and yoga; analyzed by prakṛti, sthiti, anubhāga, and pradeśa.

Nirjarā

The shedding of accumulated karmic matter, either by natural ripening or by active austerity and equanimity; together with saṃvara it leads to liberation.

Guṇasthāna

One of fourteen stages of spiritual ascent, from mithyādṛṣṭi through the seven cāritra stages to ayogakevalī; the eleventh stage ends all new bondage.

Upayoga

The defining mark of jīva: consciousness directed outward as darśana (perception) and jñāna (knowledge); it persists in all living beings, though obscured by karma.

Sthāvara jīva

Immobile one-sensed beings: earth, water, fire, air, and plant bodies (pṛthvīkāya, apkāya, teukāya, vāyukāya, vanaspatikāya); they possess only the sense of touch.

Sādhāraṇa vanaspati

A common-body plant in which many jīvas share one physical body, such as bulbs, roots, and tubers; harming it injures numerous souls at once.

Ahiṃsā

Abstention from harming any jīva in thought, word, and deed, including non-approval of others' violence; it is declared the supreme dharma in Jain ethics.

Aṇuvrata

A limited vow of non-violence, truth, non-stealing, chastity, and non-possession undertaken by a householder, smaller in scope than the ascetic mahāvrata.

Mahāvrata

One of the five great vows-ahiṃsā, satya, asteya, brahmacarya, aparigraha-observed by Jain ascetics in their strict, total form.

Pratimā

One of eleven progressive stages of lay practice, from right faith to partial renunciation, marking a householder's gradual approach to monastic discipline.

Nikṣepa

A fourfold (or sixfold) analysis of a term's meaning-nāma, sthāpanā, dravya, bhāva-used to avoid equivocation before applying naya and syādvāda.

Nayābhāsa

A false standpoint: a naya that is valid in its own aspect but is asserted as the complete truth, thereby denying other genuine aspects of the object.

Ratnatraya

The three jewels-samyak darśana, samyak jñāna, samyak cāritra-which together constitute the Jain path to liberation.

Samyak darśana

Right faith, arising from the suppression-cum-destruction of darśana-mohanīya; it is conviction in the tattvas and the necessary first step on the path.

Mokṣa

Complete destruction of all karmas and release from saṃsāra; the siddha dwells in siddha-śilā with infinite knowledge, perception, bliss, and energy, formless and sexless.

Tattvārtha Sūtra

Umāsvāti's ten-chapter, 357-sūtra Sanskrit compendium of Jain doctrine, accepted by both Digambara and Śvetāmbara traditions as the standard systematic text.

Ācārāṅga

The first Aṅga of the Śvetāmbara canon, a monastic discipline text containing early teachings on ahiṃsā and the ascetic life attributed to Mahāvīra's tradition.

Kundakunda

A major Digambara ācārya, author of Samayasāra, Pravacanasāra, and Niyamasāra, known for stressing the pure, intrinsically luminous nature of the self.

Jain vs Nyāya pramāṇa

Nyāya accepts four pramāṇas and treats sense-perception as pratyakṣa; Jainism accepts two or three and classes sense-perception as parokṣa, reserving pratyakṣa for the self's direct cognition.