Kalpasutra

Author(s): J Stevenson
Publisher: Oriental Translation Fund London

Page 43

INTRODUCTION
11
is the blossoms, the knowledge of the Samáchári is the scent, and the obtaining of liberation is the fruit. And why should I add more? since from reading or giving aid at the lecture, or from listening to all the letters of this Kalpa, along with the proper reverential ceremonies, emancipation is obtained after the eighth transmigration, according to the following text: “O Gautama, they who hear twenty-one times with an attentive mind the Institute of the Jain Religion, performing the proper reverence, and bringing the proper gifts to the venerable sages, are saved from this world's abyss." This treatise, then, is to be read on the fifth day after the new moon of Bhadrapad, according to our Institutions. Among the Digambara community, it is read during the eight days of the great festival of Jamáli, when they continue fasting, and make the figure of Nandidripa under the name of Yasodhara Charitra. It forms also part of the Institute for the Rishi Panchami, the origin of which I now relate*. There was a certain Brahman in the city of Pushpavati, whose father and mother were dead. In process of time they
* As this is one of the best of onr author's stories, and tends to show in what light the Jains view Brahmanism, I have given it a place in the text. It is indeed a severe satire on those who entertain their friends from the proceeds of oppression, exercised towards their inferiors and the brute creativi.