Disclaimer: This translation does not guarantee complete accuracy, please confirm with the original page text.
125
To preserve. Discussions in the commentary on Tattvartha Sutra 1, 1; 5, 29, and 5, 31.
5. Before starting the study, the teacher should engage the students with some general yet interesting discourses to introduce both the external and internal aspects of Tattvartha. At appropriate times, when the occasion arises, the teacher should arrange suitable discourse to draw the students' attention towards philosophy in relation to history and developmental progression.
6. There are two major opposing views regarding the teaching of the third and fourth chapters on geography, astronomy, heaven, and hell. One party opposes including them in the curriculum, while the other considers the study incomplete without their instruction. These are the extreme ends of both perspectives; therefore, it is advisable for the teacher to change the underlying viewpoint behind teaching those two chapters even while including them. The entirety of the third and fourth chapters is said to be universally acknowledged, and there should be no change in it. Nowadays, if all ideas are found to be completely wrong based on Jain beliefs, it is worth discarding them outright. Instead of emphasizing the teaching of those chapters, one should focus on how various beliefs in Aryan philosophy regarding heaven, hell, geography, and astronomy were prevalent during a certain period and what place Jain philosophy holds within those beliefs, understanding that teaching those chapters from a historical perspective is appropriate.