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Publisher's Note Most of the religious as well as philosophical schools have accepted Sādhanā, as a means for the realisation of the ultimate end of our life. The word Sādhanā literally means 'a way to attain something' or means to an end. In restricted religious sense of the term Sādhanā is a systemetic course for self-discipline and practice for the removal of sorrow and sufferings of human life and attainment of salvation. In Jainism Sādhanā means the realisation of the real nature of our soul i. e., infinite knowledge, infinite perception, infinite bliss and infinite power which is obscured by Karmas. So long as the dominion of the Karma is not completely dissipated, the self cannot reach to its essential inherent purity and perfection. Jaina Sādhanā provides a well planned method or technique of physical, psychical, moral and spiritual discipline for the dissipation of the Karmas and revelation of the real nature of ones own self which is already there in.
We feel immense pleasure in bringing out this title "An Introduction to Jaina Sadhanā' authored by Dr. Sagarmal Jain. Present work is a compilation of the lectures delivered by Dr. Jain under the auspices of Annual Lecture Series 1992-93 at the Department of Jainology, University of Madras.
We are very grateful to the authorities of the University of Madras, who entrusted this work to our institute for publication.
Though there are number of books in English on diffe'rent aspects of Jainism including the concept of Sādhanā but most of the works are scholarly monograph discussing the subject with its minute details and thus they are unable to attract
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