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51
Letter 8
Nature of Manifestation/Modification Letter 8
May 20, 1994. Dear Reena & Mona,
Blessings & Best Wishes. It is nice to meet once in a month through these letters. But in the meantime you too should study Jinagam (kerne ) or do Swadhyay ( parema ) regularly, because regularity and punctuality will increase interest and you will understand its intricacies more and more clearly.
In the year 1972 we had been to Kumbhoj Bahubali on a photography assignment. That time reverend Acharya Samantbhadra Maharaj inspired me to read and study the scriptures i.e. to do Swadhyay. He told me that it will be alright even if I read while I had free time in the dispensary.
As a result of that inspiration and my further study according to his advice, today our life has changed over a new leaf. We both of us do, at least 4 to 5 hours of Swadhyay, reading, discussions on what is read and its analysis in our own mind. For about an hour or two I go to the dispensary in my free time. During that evening hour, your daddy teaches others, who are keen to know about this philosophy and does Swadhyay with them. At other times he is busy translating other books.
In my last 2-3 letters we got the preliminary knowledge about the nature of cosmos, substance and attributes. You have to continuously keep on reading, thinking and listening to others, about the nature of Dravya, Guna and Paryay. It is not possible to know it well only by just memorizing their definitions or studying them in question and answer form. And unless you know the nature of Dravya, Guna and Paryay properly and thoroughly you will not understand Jain philosophy. Today we will know more about Paryay.
in letter no.7 we learnt the definition of Guna as "That which is found or exists in all the areas of the substance and in all its manifestations is Guna". This manifestation is Paryay. It is also called as Awastha अवस्था, Dasha दशा, Halat हालत, Artha अर्थ, Parinam परिणाम, Parinaman ufut47.
In simple words we can describe it as form, status, mode of existence or modification, functioning or activity of an attribute. The definition of manifestation is, 'function or activity of an attribute is called Manifestation !
Each attribute is changing its form at each samay ( smallest unit of time ). That means each attribute is having new modification at each samay. At every samay a new modification is evolving and the previous
