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Lobha as the Kashaya Hardest to Uproot

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Lobha as the Kashaya Hardest to Uproot

Jain texts single lobha out among the four kashayas as the passion practitioners find hardest to eliminate completely, on the grounds that krodha, mana and maya each require some object or occasion to provoke them, while lobha can attach itself to almost anything, including, commentators note pointedly, to the very practice of asceticism meant to overcome it, as when a monk becomes attached to his own reputation for detachment or to the karma bound possessions he has renounced fewer of than he believes.

The Tattvartha Sutra's four degree grading applies to lobha as it does to the other kashayas, but Jain commentarial literature treats even its mildest recorded degree as more persistent than the equivalent mild degree of anger or pride, since a flash of anger dissipates once its occasion passes while a subtle craving can simply relocate onto a new object without ever fully extinguishing.

Padmanabh Jaini notes that this is precisely why aparigraha, non possession, occupies its place as one of the five mahavratas, the great vows, in its own right rather than being folded into a general instruction to avoid the four kashayas: lobha's specific tenacity is judged to need a dedicated positive vow, continuous non attachment practised as a discipline, rather than the negative restraint that suffices for passions more easily triggered and more easily released once the triggering occasion is past.

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