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The Jains through Time
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gold' is actually brass. I would like to ask genuineness of the scriptures that Acharya them why they are so worried; why they Abhaydev has presented to us. Before him want to slink away from this examination. If the great logician of the fifth century, something is gold, it will always be gold. If Acharya Siddhasen, who established Jain it is brass, how long will its coating of gold ontology on a par with other schools of last in any case? In separating the gold from philosophy, also propounded a decisive the brass, in setting the truth apart from all means of examining scriptures. He said, else, lies the magic of wisdom.
"That is true scripture which contains
knowledge experienced and examined by That great commentator on the Jain the Realised Ones, that cannot be displaced Agamas, Acharya Abhaydev, in his by the words of others, that establishes a commentary on the Bhagavati-Sutra, has laid principle which cannot be invalidated by down an important principle that could argument or other evidence, that is serve as a test for finding the true voice of beneficial as an instrument for the universal Mahavir. He asks the following questions: welfare of all creatures, and that resists Who could be called a Realised Soul or a ideologies opposing spiritual aspirations.' 54 Venerated One? What could be called the revelation of a Tirthankar ? What is divine This method of examining scripture given preaching? In reply, he says that Tirthankars to us by the Acharya is still valid today. preach only that truth which is an aspect of When Kapil, the great philosopher of the liberation, and a means to it. They do not Vedic tradition, and the great dialectician preach anything that has no immediate Gautam, included shabda - the Sanskrit for bearing on the liberation of the soul. Had 'word'- as part of the authoritative they done so, their own omniscience could testimony for judging a truth, they were not have been called so.53
asked which words would be acceptable as
this authoritative testimony. To this they This is a true touchstone for judging the replied, 'The word of the Realised Ones is
nahi āpfah sāksad pāramparvona vā yanna mõksānigam tad pratipadayitumutsahato anaptatvaprasarigat, Acharya Abhaydev, Bigawati-Initi 1/1 āptoparamanlarighyarnadsfestavrõdhakam, tattropade aktsarvan sastram kāpathaghatanam, Nayantar,
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