Jain Legend Vol 4

Author(s): Hastimal Maharaj, Shuganchand Jain, P S Surana
Publisher: Hastimal Maharaj Shugan C Jain P S Surana

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Abhayadeva S ri confronted many hardships while writing V ttis on 9 Amgas like Sth n mga etc. Placing them in front of contemporary Jina devotees and people of future generations, he pointed out seven such problems in Sth n mga V tti. The first difficulty 'satsamprad yah naty t' demands a deep contemplation. In the first line of the first verse of the citation he clearly and fearlessly without any bias towards any tradition presented the fact to the Jain world that – 'Today (during his times) our society faces a dearth of good tradition' - i.e. here he implies the finest lineage of gurus, a tradition void of excellent gurus who can explain the real inner and in-depth meaning of the words and S tras of scriptures. The decline of pure fundamental scripture based tradition started approximately 590 years prior to the authoring of V ttis and reached its lowest ebb by 1550 V.N., throwing it into an inexplicable dismal condition. Illustrating the true picture, Abhayadeva S ri without any bigotry clearly accepted that - 'Somehow today there is a paucity of a good tradition'. This strongly proves that he was an ardent supporter of truth.
Yet one more strong evidence which reveals his quality more clearly than this is the historical verse given below of his ' gama A ottar which was described in detail in the third volume of this series.
Devadidhakham sama aj , paramparam Bh vao viy Siļhil ye haviy , davvao parampar bahu //
'I know very clearly that till the times of Devardhiga i K am rama a (1000 V.N.), the pure scripture based spiritual tradition existed in its fundamental form like a pure flowing river. But after him, the monks who became lax in the code of conduct of Mah v ra's congregation created many material offering based traditions." Thus Abhayadeva S ri fearlessly and objectively expressed the fact. This confirms that he was a great and ardent worshipper of truth.
He dedicated his entire life to Jain order carrying out activities for the progress of Jina order. He was made c rya in Vikram 1088 at a tender age of 16. With this it can be inferred what an exceptionally brilliant person he was. Holding the post of crya for 51 years, he wrote many texts on diverse topics apart from the huge V tti literature. In Vikram 1139, when he was in Kapadagamja (Gurjara Pradesh), he realised one
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