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276
Bhagavati Satra
16. The commentator gives the following meaning of cauttham cautthenam : cauttham cautihenam tti caturthabhaktam yāvat vaktam tyajyate yatra taccaturtham iyam copavāsasya sanjñā evam şaşthädikamupavāsadvayāderiti. [The meaning of the word caturtha-bhakta is to miss four full meals. As used here, it is a proper noun to signify the name of a fast which lasts for a day plus half day preceding and half day following.)
17. The life which monk Skandaka worthily lived on this earth may in brief be restated as follows: A vedic scholar of great fame and a profound master of the entire range of the Brahminical scholarship, Skandaka had a complete turn in the course of his life when he came in touch with Sramaņa Bhagavān Mahāvira. Skandaka not only embraced Jainism but entered into the Jaina holy order wherein he was initiated by the Sramaņa Bhagavān himself. He read eleven Angas under the Master and other senior monks, and was permitted to complete two great penances, viz., bhikṣu-pratimă and guņa-ratna samvatsara. In the end, he entered into liberation by courting a fast unto death at the holiest of holy places, Mount Vipula.
18. The soul is tied up with pleasure and pain, etc. When, by a conscious effort, the soul takes dormant vedaniya and other karmas to a stage of fructification and throws them out, the process is called samudghata. A man may die either after performing a samudghäta or even before it. Seven types of samudghātas have been stated as follows :
(1) vedanā samudghata of vedaniya karma (2) kaṣāya samudghäta of mohaniya karma (3) märaņāntika samudghāta of ayu karma
vaikriya samudghăta of the fluid body (5) taijas samudghata of the caloric body (6) ähāraka samudghāta of the assimilative body (7) kevali samudghāta of vedaniya karma, name and line.
The first three take place in case of earth-bodies, waterbodies, fire-bodies and flora-bodies, two-organ beings, threeorgan beings and four-organ beings. The first four are relevant