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PREFACE : LXXXIX
About the Cūrnis, we have to say that they had been composed only after the Prakīrnakas. Nandi-cūrni even mentions Mahāpratyākhyāna.75 Again, Cūrnis are mainly in prose and if any of the verses of Mahāpratyākhyāna have been quoted, we will have to believe that they have been taken from Mahāpratyākhyāna only. According to the analysis of the periods of Mahāpratyākhyāna and the Curnis, too, we can see that the latter are the compositions of the 7th century while the former is that of a period earlier than the 5th century.
According to its subject-matter, Mahāpratyākhyāna is, predominantly, a work devoted to the subject of spiritual practice. In it we mainly find a description of Samādhimarana (peaceful death) and its preparatory pr: cedures. Samādhimarana can be considered as an important part of the Jaina practices. In the Jaina tradition, the aspirant practitioner, whether a monk or a householder, is encouraged to embrace Samadhimarana as a natural culmination of his lifelong practices. Some of the verses of Mahāpratyākhyāna motivate the aspirant to embrace voluntary peaceful death (Samadhimarana) while some others instruct him to undertake expiatory measures such as confession, criticism, condemnation and denouncing of past misdeeds and faults and to undertake the awarded penance as a means of atonement for such faults. Actually, they are reparatory to the final practice of Samădhimarana, which is in the form of fast unto death. The remaining verses tell the aspirant as to how he can control his mind and inner motives when he undertakes the final vow.
75 Nandicūini, sūtra 81. Jain Education International
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