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186
Joharimal Parikh
cate salvation through nescience but this only augments the cycle of existence. Some say the same thing as spoken by omniscients. Many persons understand quickly while others cannot -- the latter become frustrated.
H2. People in this world have various view-points which are not correctly arrived at. All sorts of conflicting statements are made e. g. Universe is a realityUniverse is a myth; it always remains constant as it is-it is everchanging; it has a beginning-it has no beginning; it comes to an end-it is eternal; something is welldone--no it is a wrong doing, a particular act is meritorious - no, it is sinful; this man is religious-no, he is irreligious; there is mokşa- there is no mokşa; there is hell-there is no hell. Every one says that his view alone is correct but on critical examination this does not seem so.
Thus a preliminary attempt (to be followed by a detailed and revised one ) has been made to arrange the Acāranga for easy understandings : comments on it are invited. In this presentation, leaving aside the introductory and concluding paras the main body of the paper neither contains a single word outside of the Acārānga nor does it leave any of its Sūtras* unaccommodated. By reason of such a faithful exercise, this article may not be treated as philosophical in the traditional or strict sense of the term, but this unadultered and non-critical summary has been advisedly put up because the omniscient propounders of religion do not frame philosophy--they utter the natural truth; philosophers come next and start grooming and in their anxiety to make it more scientific, substitute logic in place of nature and what we get are intellectual but often ridiculous results.
Thus the Acârānga is not a monopoly of any religion-rather, like the Gita, religion flows from it. And it scores on one point that it is a complete code in itself. There is, however, one complaint that the scholarly world has so far neglected its due study and research, and I may be excused of adding the second that they have also neglected to follow it. Doubtless, the Ācārānga makes a pleasant reading, but on practicing it alone one realises the true meaning and immensely more the bliss.
Numbers of the sūtras are as per the text of Ācārānga edited by Rev. Jamboo Vijayaji and published by Mahavir Jain Vidyalaya, Bombay 1977.
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