Jain Journal 1971 07

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 38

JAIN JOURNAL
known as gunasthānas. The attainment of right attitude (samyag darśana) is followed by the attainment of right knowledge (samyag jñāna) and right conduct (samyag cāritra). The soul acquires more and more power for self-concentration (dhyāna) along with the increase of its purity and consequent attainment of the corresponding stages of spiritual development. The works of Acārya Kundakunda, Pujyapada and Jinabhadra contain elaborate instructions in self-meditation and concentration of mind. The works of Haribhadra records a number of different doctrines of yoga and their comparative evaluation. The Iñānārnava of Subhacandra and
Yogašāstra of Hemacandra are valuable works on yoga. There were host of other writers too on the subject. But it should be noted here that while the Jaina mind was always conscious of the efficacy of meditation for achievement of final emancipation, it abhored the acquisition of supernatural powers by means of yogic processes.
The third bunch on acară covers literature both on monks and laymen and is an important part of extra-Agamic literature which has kept the four-fold religious order on the track. The fourth bunch deals with rules and regulations, kalpa, mantra, tantra, festivals and the holy places. These offer interesting study of the rituals and customs of the Jainas.
Volume Five of this comprehensive survey is devoted to lākșanik or technical literature produced by the Jainas, of which twentyseven groups have been noted. The largest single place in this technical literature is occupied by the works of grammarians of which as many as one hundred and ninety have been considered in this volume. Fortyfive dictionaries produced at different periods have been taken note of. Then come Alamkāra (Rhetoric) and Chanda (Prosody), dramatics and musuology, art and mathematics, astronomy and psychology including interpretation of dreams, medicine and engineering, diplomacy and economics, numismatics and biology, social and material sciences, etc. In this connection, it is interesting to note here that they had produced works even on some of the most difficult, obscure and technical branches like kinometography, cosmology, aeronautics, acoustics, trigonometry, etc. Needless to add that in these and many other respects the western scholarship has quite independently, broken grounds which were never reached by the classical men and material science is attaining new heights in the West. But we in this country have reason to be proud that quite a number of them had their genesis in this land.
-K.C.L.