Five Essentials

                  Jain scriptures have described five essentials (Samvay)  which are present when any event occurs. These are nature, catalyst(nimitta), effort, time (for the event to occur) and destiny. These are equally applicable in real life world for a Jiva for a worldly event, or attaining of right belief (samyak darshan). Many a times people make a statement loosely saying that the event would occur if it is destined to be so , or say it is god’s wish or so on.  But Jainism has laid down five necessary requirements for the event to occur.

1.       Nature: This establishes that the event would occur only if it is in the nature of the thing. For example a statue cannot gain knowledge or a Jiva cannot become insentient pot.

2.       Catalyst( nimitta) : For every event to occur there may be numerous participants which may be present which apparently aid the event but in reality are just present. They do not contribute to the cause of the event but just denote the occurrence. That is why people confuse them as doer of the event.

3.       Effort ( purusharth) : For any event there has to be the necessary effort  on the part of jiva, be it being angry or attaining right belief. Generally people give very low importance to it and give credit to nimitta , but in reality the event is because of effort. For example a student passes exam because of his effort in learning, although nimitta in form of teacher, books, etc. are present.

4.       Time for the event to occur ( kalalabdhi) : For a student to pass exam, a certain time should have elapsed in his life before which the event would not occur. When time is ripe for the event it occurs. This also explains why Mahaveer was 24^th Tirthankara while Adinath was 1^st in the current cycle of time.

5.       Destiny : This defines the event. For example Mahaveer became 24^th Tirthankara was the event which occurred at the appropriate time 2500 years back. It was not his destiny to be first Tirthankara.

               At this juncture it would be appropriate to recall that in Jainism the sruta gyan or the entire scriptural knowledge is based upon praman and naya. Praman is the total knowledge of a thing while Naya is knowledge of the thing from specific aspect. Typical example quoted is the knowledge of an elephant is praman while describing his legs like pillers or tail like rope are naya statements which provided details of the elephant. Similarly the accomplishment of any event is in the presence of all the five essentials in view of sruta praman. On the other hand from the aspect of naya the credit is given  to whichever essential being described.

                  Suppose a student passes an exam. One may credit to his teacher, books , notes etc which are nimitta only, without saying anything about his effort. This is quite alright but it should be kept in mind that his effort was present , although not being described. In the same way it was time for him to pass and it was his destiny. When all were present then only he passed the exam.

 How does it apply to the description of soul ?

The issue arises because people wonder that attainment of Moksha is by effort or destiny ?

          This question has been raised in Moksha Marg Prakashak by Pandit Todarmalji and answered beautifully as follows :

           A question is raised that attainment of Moksha occurs at  the time for it to occur ( kalalabdhi) designated by destiny, by the destruction or suppression of karmas or by efforts( purusharth). If it occurs by means of first two then why do you preach us ? If it is by efforts then why do only few of them make the effort even though all are being preached ? The answer is that in occurrence of an event several essentials are present. For attainment of Moksha , all essentials are present , and for nor attainment all the essentials are absent. 

         In reality the time and destiny are not in our control. Whatever time an event occurs , that is the time for it to occur and that event alone is destined to occur. Further destruction or suppression of karmas is in the domain of matter not jiva hence not within his control. The only effort Jiva can do it to try to traverse on path to Moksha and that is why same is preached to him. When he makes that effort then other essentials also become present. If he does not make effort then the presence of other essentials become irrelevant.

                Similar sentiments are written by Acharya Jayasen in the commentary on Panchastikaya:

When a Jiva traverses the path of practical and real Moksha Marga of the form of trilogy of right belief, knowledge and conduct , at the appropriate destined time ; then he destroys the various karmas in the dravya and bhava form and unveils his siddhahood form, which is unique from the point of view of manifestation. From the point of view of pure reality Jiva was always Siddha form only. Here all the five essentials are described. By  pure real nature the Jiva is Siddha form at all times. The destruction of karmas is nimitta, traversing the moksha marg is effort, then time is ripe for destiny of Siddha form manifestation.

                Now let us consider the argument of some people who say that Jainism is Niyativad i.e. just believes in destiny only. But if we examine the five essentials, we find that it is not just destiny, but also effort as well as nimtta. When a thing has to happen all would be seen to be present and when it does not occur all would be absent.

                On the other hand some people say that let us not worry, when Moksha has to happen to us then it will happen as seen by omniscient. While this is a good excuse for not making the effort, the only question they should ask themselves is whether they have become omniscient already ? If not, how do they know that omniscient has not seen them making effort just now ?

             Why is it , that they don’t  think that omniscient has seen them making effort and attaining Moksha also. Clearly it shows a lack of conviction on the form of omniscient. Some people think that while omniscient knows all that has happened so far, he does not know the future. Does it not mean that they believe that the knowledge of omniscient goes on increasing everyday, which also means that he has perturbation due to lack of knowledge. This is self contradictory. Omniscience and lack of knowledge cannot go together.

               

Law of sequential Manifestation

               An automatic corollary of the five essentials would be law of sequential manifestation. We can see that since every event is as per destiny at its designated appropriate moment then automatically it emerges       that the events are sequentially manifested. For example bhagwan Mahaveer was destined to be 24^th Tirthankara about 2500 years back, then there is no way he could have prevented that and become 1^st Tirthankara in place of bhagwan Adinath. Since both the time and the event are fixed , it means the event would occur in time space as destined and not change. This is applicable to every moment from second to second, hour to hour and year to year. From this the principle of sequential manifestation gets generated which is worded in Kartikeya Anupreksha in following way : 

            “For whichever Jiva , in whichever country, in whichever time, by whichever method, his death or birth is known by Jindeva as destined; for that Jiva the same shall occur in that country, at that time, by that method certainly. That cannot be altered by Indra or Jinendra himself. “

We can notice that in addition to sequential manifestation here, the omniscience of Jinendra has also been told here. It just means that 1) the event is destined to happen at such and such moment of time 2) Jinendra bhagwan knows it being omniscient 3) even he cannot change it.

            This topic has been subject of considerable debate in last few decades but there is no escaping the fact that if we accept the five essentials as principle of Jainism, it automatically implies this. Further omniscient knows it is just a confirmation of the event. In fact if we believe the form of omniscience the way it should be, then it emerges that he has knowledge of each event. Hence it becomes predestined.

            People were not able to accept it  because they considered it as an obstruction to their right to change their destiny. The question arises that then what is the significance of effort if everything is predestined?

            The mistake lies in believing that all the five essentials are not coming into play. If we look at the five essentials then we find that the effort is also part of it and nimitta is also present for the event. So even the effort is predestined. So if you are destined to attain Moksha then you definitely will make the effort as well as attain it also. It is only the sceptics who have foretold their own fate by not making the effort. Knowledge of Jinedra bhagwan is incidental. There are infinite Siddha bhagwan in this universe and all of them would know the same thing. However they cannot change it. Knowing and changing destiny are two different things altogether.

How does it affect us ?

          Really speaking we do not know what Jinendra bhagwan knows , so that should not be subject of concern. In fact we should take it positively by considering that he has seen us making the effort. But the purpose of the five essentials was something else. What it conveyed was that every momentary manifestation of ours is predestined hence we cannot change it , whether it pertains to passing exams or achievements in business or becoming a minister. Nor can we change others’ destiny. The only appropriate thing left for us to do is contemplate upon the self to realise self and remain within the self. Other activities would occur as and when they are due to occur , but I remain within the self. In fact as Jiva the only domain of our activity is just knowing and seeing. Rest is all imagination in which we are indulging needlessly. So why should we spend our energies in useless activities which are anyway inconsequential. Knowing this then it is best to remain within the self.