Jaina Acara Siddhanta aur Svarupa

Author(s): Devendramuni
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 21

( x ) has the power to change this great law of nature. Every morning we witness the rising of the sun, we also observe that in the evening withdrawing its activities it sets. Its story ends the moment it sets. However, there are some extraordinary individuals whose brilliant personality and contributions never fade. They are timeless. The narrow boundaries of time and space can never cast shadow on their scintillating. personality and their works. My mother was one such brilliant person. Her lofty qualities are difficult to express in words because of limitation. I got her affection right since the beginning of my life. Her overflowing fondness guided my life. Her blessed support always inspired me to progress on the path of spiritual practices. Death's evil hands snatched away this brave daughter of Rajasthan and a gem among ascetics. Mother had a deep faith in the code of conduct for the “Sramanas. She herself observed purity of conduct and attitude. Although a profound scholar of the canonical literature, she had not a trace of pride. She had risen above the bonds of fondness and affection and had become an embodiment of duty. Her worthy advice and teachings will always guide my path. It is my earnest desire and wish that I may continue my progress on the path of conduct shown by her. This is but my true tribute to her.
The Hindi edition of "Jaina Acara, Siddhānta Aur Swarupa" was published in 1982. Those who read this liked it. They advised that if a good English version of the book is brought out it would be extremely useful to English-knowing scholars who should be curious to know about Jaina conduct. All available books are not adequately informative as this one. I accepted their advice and entrusted the translation work to the head of the department of philosophy, Madras University. He completed it in five years, but when it was shown to some eminent scholars, they said that the translation was not up to the mark and because of the ignorance of Jaina technical terms there were many misinterpretations. Prof. Kalayānmal Lodha and some other persons tried hard to make it presentable but in vain. As such Dr. Nagarmal Sahal was entrusted with this work. Dr. Rajkrishana Dugar did everything so as to be of help to Dr. Sahal who is a renowned scholar of English language and has many works including translations to his credit. Dr. Sahal was of the opinion that a free flowing translation would he more useful to the readers as compared to a literal verbatim translation. The footnotes in the Hindi edition have not been included in the English translation because of their being incorporated in the text resulting in reducing the number of pages to about half the original work. I hope that this English version will be very useful to interested readers..