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158
UTTARADHYAYANA.
TWENTY-NINTH LECTURE.
THE EXERTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS. O long-lived (Gambasvâmin)! I (Sudharman) have heard the following discourse from the venerable (Mahâvira).
Here, forsooth, the Venerable Ascetic Mahâvîra, of the Kasyapa Gôtra, has delivered this lecture called the exertion in righteousness. Many creatures, who truly believe in the subject (taught in this lecture), put their faith in it, give credence to it, accept it, practise it, comply with it, study it, understand it, learn it, and act up to it according to the precept (of the Ginas) —have obtained perfection, enlightenment, deliverance, final beatitude, and have put an end to all misery.
This lecture treats of the following subjects : 1. sam vêga, longing for liberation ; 2. nirveda, disregard of worldly objects; 3. dharmasraddha, desire of the Law;
4. gurusâdharmikasusrüshanâ, obedience to co-religionists and to the Guru.
5. âlôka nâ, confession of sins before the Guru; 6. ninda, repenting of one's sins to oneself ; 7. garhâ, repenting of one's sins before the Guru;
1 Here we have no less than ten verbs, many of which are synonyms, with probably no well-defined difference in their meaning. This heaping of synonymous words is a peculiarity of the archaic style. The commentators always labour hard to assign to each word an appropriate meaning, but by sometimes offering different sets of explanations they show that their ingenuity of interpretation was not backed by tradition.
