From Arhat to Siddha
Embodying Jain Knowledge as a Symbol of the Power to Destroy One's Inner Enemies
From Tarka Vol. 9: On Power, by Dr Christopher Jain Miller
The Jain tradition’s supreme Namokar Mantra (paṃca-namokkāra), quoted here in Prakrit in its earliest known manifestation, gives praise to two orders of exceptional spiritual beings whose knowledge demonstrated that they had the power to destroy all enemies. Jains, devoted as they have been to non-violence (ahiṃsā̄) for thousands of years, have understood these to be inner enemies, that is, one’s own karmas. The two categories of supreme figures found here in the Namokar Mantra who have destroyed their karmic enemies are the Arhats and the Siddhas.
namo arahaṃtānam |
namo sava-siddhānaṃ ||
I bow to the Arhats |
I bow to all the Siddhas ||
The Siddhas, or “perfected ones,” are those “who are flourishing through perfectly purified Cognition and Seeing.” Implied here is the fact that the Siddhas have completely eliminated their knowledge-covering (nāṇāvaraṇijjaṃ) and intuition-covering (darisaṇāvaraṇijjam) karmas, achieved liberation, and now eternally reside at the apex of the Jain universe (loka) as dispassionate observers. Prior to achieving this highly exalted liberated state, however, the Siddhas had gone through a preliminary and much more difficult process of achieving omniscience to become Arhats first.
According to the canonical Śvetāmbara text Mahānisīha-sutta (7th century CE), the Arhats, or “those worthy of praise,” are those beings who are “within the whole world… full of omniscience” due to the fact that they have destroyed the “invincible enemy” of karma. Due to their ability to do so, the synonym “Jina,” from the Sanskrit verbal root √jī, “to conquer,” is also often used to describe the Arhats. In the Jain tradition, omniscience (kevala-jñāna) is indeed the penultimate step to liberation (mokṣa/parinirvāṇa). However, liberation is achieved only when an omniscient Arhat leaves the body at death. Before this final moment, however, he or she, having shown that it is possible to defeat the enemy of karma, remains in the world to dispassionately share Jain teachings with others so that they might achieve the same.
One of the keywords here is dispassionately, as Arhats have, through their austerities, amassed the power to eliminate all of their karma-attracting passions – the seemingly invincible enemies – including compassion, which keep us trapped in the cycle of rebirth and endless suffering. By embodying dispassion, the Arhats model the power necessary to achieve omniscience. This is not to say that compassion is not central to spiritual life in the Jain tradition, as compassion (kāruṇya) is promoted as the appropriate response for spiritual aspirants toward all beings they encounter who are in a state of distress (kliśyamāna), both human and non-human. Experiences of compassion are even often the experience that wakes people up to pursue the spiritual path according to the Jain tradition, such as when they see animals being sent for slaughter in the case of the Jina Neminātha or when they pay close enough attention to the desire of all beings to live, as observed by the Jina Mahāvīra. Ultimately, however, Jains recognize that attachments to feelings of any kind will cause karma and must eventually be completely abandoned to avoid rebirth.
Thus, before advancing to the final blessed state of becoming a Siddha, the Arhat remains fully – and yet dispassionately – engaged with the world until the end of his or her life. He or she disseminates the teachings of non-violence and dispassion and serves as the exemplary model around which the Jain community organizes itself, as each of its individual members works toward embodying the requisite knowledge and conduct necessary to achieve the same.
While embodying such a state that is “worthy of praise” (see above), the Arhat has nevertheless also fully relinquished attachment to exercising power. Thus, unlike yogic conceptions of supernatural powers, or siddhis, which are sometimes purposefully sought after by yogins for worldly gain, the Arhats, having eliminated the inner enemies that might tempt them to do the same, join, after their final earthly breath, the paṃca-namokkāra’s praise-worthy Siddhas eternally free from the karmic bondage effected by attachment to power.
According to Pūjyapāda’s Sarvārthasiddhi commentary on the canonical Tattvārtha Sūtra, we are currently in the fifth of sixth descending cosmic time cycles (avasarpiṇī) that began shortly after the liberation of Mahāvīra (6th-5th c. BCE) and during which the world is predicted to endure significant suffering. Pūjyapāda’s teachings here seem all too relevant, given the interconnected turmoil wrought by political violence, climate collapse, social injustice, animal agriculture, and biodiversity loss that we all collectively face today. All of these issues are undergirded by humanity’s abuse of power, the power that Foucault has shown us is everywhere. But this is also the same abusive human power that the Arhats, who are not predicted to appear again for thousands of years, are said to have nevertheless overcome ages ago.
Until the next ascending cosmic cycle (utsarpiṇī̄), we are left only with the Arhats’ enduring knowledge in Jain texts and in the few remaining embodied examples in the living Jain ascetic tradition in South Asia today. We also find special tribute to their knowledge etched in stone in the Khāravela caves where it has withstood the passing of more than two thousand years:
namo arahaṃtānam | namo sava-siddhānaṃ ||
I bow to the Arhats | I bow to all the Siddhas ||
Thank you for reading.
Tarka Volume 9, On Power, was released in July 2027.
To read the rest of On Power, purchase the volume in print or digital from our online bookstore.
About the author: Christopher Jain Miller, PhD, is Vice President of Academic Affairs and Professor of Jain and Yoga Studies at Arihanta Institute; Visiting Researcher at the University of Zürich’s Asien-Orient-Institut; and Affiliate Professor at Claremont School of Theology. He is the author of Embodying Transnational Yoga: Eating, Singing, and Breathing in Transformation (Routledge 2024).