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THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE JAINAS.
Qualities (Guna).-This indicates the three jewels : right beliet, right knowledge, and right conduct, which jointly characterise a Liberated Soul.
Jewels (Ratna).- The above three Jewels (ratna-traya) are meant.
Descriptive (Prarúpanam) - The part describing the soul, i.e., (Jíva Kanda) the name of the book.
(Gunaratna bhúsanodayam).-In which treatise appear the brilliant three Jewels and infinite other attributes of a Perfect Soul.
Nemi.- Lord Nemi, the 22nd Tirthamkara is adored in this (Gáthá) because the temple named (Mahápúta) (lit. very pure) at Sravanabelgola (also called Gommata Svámi), contains the image of Lord Nemi. This Mahápúta was built by Rájá Chámunda Raya, Minister of Maharaja Rája-Malla Deva, of the Ganga dynasty. RájaMalla was a pupil of the Saint Simha Nandi,
In a book there are 6 parts.
Invocation (Mangala); Occasion of writing it (Nimitta); Object (Hetu); Extent, number of (Gáthás), etc.,(Parimána); name of book (nám a); and Author (Kartá).
In this book, Gatha 1 is the invocation to Lord Nemi. The occasion was the question put to the author Sri Nemi Chandra by Chámunda-Raya. The question was: How does the body-making (Náma) Karma exist in fine (súkshma) non-developable (aparýápta,) earth-bodied souls, etc. ? The object is to propagate the tradition of Truth from master to pupil. The number of Gáthas in Jiva Kánda is 735. The name is Jiva Kánda. The author is the Saint, Nemi Chandra Siddhanta Chakravarti.
Gommata Sára is also called (Pancha Sangraha), a collection of five topics :
1. That which is bound, i.e., the Soul (Bandhaka); 2. That which is bound to the soul (Badhyamána); 3. That which binds (Bandha Svámi);
4. The varieties of bondage (Bandha Bheda); - 5. The cause of bondage (Bandha Hetu).
The first of these, namely, (Bandhaka) i. e., the mundane soul forms the subject-matter of Jíva Kanda (Jivasya Prarú panam, description of the soul.) The other four form the subject-matter of Karma Kánda.
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