Book Title: ISJS Jainism Study Notes E5 Vol 01
Author(s): International School for Jain Studies
Publisher: International School for Jain Studies
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SCHOOL
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SELF STUDY IS THE
SUPREME AUSTERITY
AN STUDIES
monk named Ramadasaji. In Samutchaya Vayācārya, however he mentions this only as a phase which he later was to outgrow.
He is said to have astonishing powers of intelligence and memory. At the age of seven he started going to school and it barely took him a month to master the numerals. At the age of 7, when he saw his neighbor being cremated, he obtained jäti-smaraṇa-jñāna (knowledge recollecting his past births) When he was eight years old he is known to have composed some five thousand lines of verse.
In this youth he earned the reputation of being a Satāvadhānī (one who could attend to a hundred different things simultaneously. He even gave public performance of these rare feet in Bombay in 1886-87. Times of India dated 24th January 1887 have published an article on it. In this 20th year he renounced these powers, as he considered them to be obstructions to his spiritual progress.
He never ran away from any of his responsibilities and duties. On the contrary, he took the uttermost care in performing them. Even in business he could have attained the highest position but he declined any such opportunities.
He was married at the age of sixteen and had five children. He advocated performing marriage and other social functions in a simple and economical way. This shows that a person can live like a householder and even live and aspire for a life of spiritual development. He holds that religion should be followed in every act of life. Whatever he was doing, whether eating, sitting, sleeping, he was firmly detached from every act. He was never attracted to any worldly matters. He lived simple dressed in very simple way and also always satisfied with whatever food was offered to him. "From V.S.1947 to 1951, for the first time he had the direct experience of atman (soul) as separate from body. This is called samakita or samyaktva. He then ardently desired to give up worldly life and become a nirgrantha muni. However his fight with external upadhi becomes quite active here. So this stage is marked with terrific battle or conflict between the two opposite forces. He feels like assuming the role of religious teacher for which renouncing worldly life and becoming a monk is a precondition."2 "Though externally he is a householder of the fourth spiritual stage, internally he has reached the seventh spiritual stage (apramatta samyata guṇasthāna) of a
2 U.K. Pungaliya, Philosophy and Spirituality Of Rajacandra, p.27
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STUDY NOTES version 5.0
