E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi’s Pancha Mahavrat… 79systems of India, Sankhya – Yoga, Puva-mimansa Uttarmimansa,and Nyaya-Vaiesheska. In all these places, themoksha stood for being liberated from the bondage of action aswell as from the endless chain of transmigration.However, it was the Vedanta school with differentshades that laid the maximum emphasis on moksha as thesupreme attainment. Adi-Sankaracharya, Ramanuja, Madhavaand Vallabha along with numerous bhasyakars underscored thecentrality of moksha as the ultimate goal of human existence.Initially, moksha was supposed to be afterlife affair. However,among the other scriptures, it was the Bhagavad Gita whichintroduced a new concept of being mukta even while remainingembodied. No less enthusiastic were the two protestantbranches, Budhism and Jainism about the centrality of mokshain human life. Both of them being agnostic did not take God asthe reference point for moksha. Buddhism underlined cessationof desire as the way to moksha which it called Nirvana.Nirvana marked a transcendent state in which the individual isfree from desire and the sense of selfhood and thereby freefrom the sense of suffering. Thus, being freed from the effectsof karma one is totally freed from the cycle of death andrebirth. It is more like extinction of the flame of a lamp ratherthan the merger of the atman with the larger and ineffableeternal entity like Paramatma as was emphasized in some ofthe Vedantic schools. Jainism underlined the complete selfpurificationas a path leading to the state of kaivalya a pristinenature of human personality after being totally rid from humanimpurities and imperfections. In Jain tradition that is possibleonly through right knowledge, right faith and right conduct,known as Triratna (three jewels). One could safely concludethat despite the nuanced shades of differentiation, the common,substratum ground among all these religious and philosophicaltraditions could be traced and delineated to a great extent threepoints. They are: