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REVIEWS OF BOOKS AND PERIODICALS.
ENGLISH.
Jaina Penance. by Champat Rai Jain, Vidyavaridhi, Barrister-at-law, pp. 169. Price Rs. 2.
This book deals with the rules laid down in the Jaina Religion for the purification of different kinds of individuals, who wish to tread the Path of Salvation as taught by the Jinas. It is based on the authority of the "Prayaschitta Samuchchaya" by Saint Gurudasji who is believed to have lived in the 10th century A.D. As the author says, "Prayaschitta is very pleasing to the generality of men, especially to the community of the pious householders (laity.) Disciplinary wows are useless in the absence of the rectifying penance; and no conduct can be deemed bright or purposeful whose faults are not noted or corrected. In short, without penance there can be no proper conduct; without proper conduct there can be no dharma (religion or piety); and without dharma salvation cannot be attained." The word prayaschitta has four different meanings according to the four different derivations. They are 1. What is pleasing to the mind of the pious folk; 2. the establishing of the mind properly in the observance of the rules relating to austerities; 3. the action that is pleasing to the heart of a saint; 4. the atonement or the eradication of a fault. Thus, prayaschitta is intended for the purification of the soul and for the eradication of the taint of evil from the heart.
The book under review describes in a brief and clear way the penances that are to be undergone by the Jaina asceties and laymen for the various degrees of faults that they may commit in the observance of the rules of conduct prescribed for them. In the first part of the book which covers 61 pages we have an explanation of the ten kinds of penances, the different types of men, the peculiarities of the sinful disposition which characterise the psychology of the transgressors, and considerations of time, place and local conditions which influence the determination of penance. The second part gives us the different prescriptions of penances Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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