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knowledge i.e., Mati, Shruta and Avadhi
He knows by his own knowledge the time when he should adopt Renunciation. If his parents are living he takes their permission to retire from the world. If they are not living he takes permission for his holy mission from his brothers or other members of the family. A year before his initiation countless celestial beings come to him and say “ O Bhagvan, show the path of virtue and rectitude." A year after, he enters the path of initiation with great festivities after making bounteous gifts of gold Mohars, but he makes no one his teacher or preceptor as he is himself to be the preceptor of the three worlds. As he is full of knowledge he relinquishes all sins, and practises severest austerities. He destroys all the four kinds of actions that impede soul's progress and becomes self-enlightened. He then preaches truths that lead beyond the net of the world and reveal virtue and rectitude. Such a one is Tirthankar. The acts which help towards the attainment of birth as Tirthankar and the twenty
