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लेश्या - कोश
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quotations from the orthodox and lesser Agamic texts on particular topics of philosophical significance and two such work one on Tinges and the other on Activity have already appeared, and the reviewer understands that material for many more is already in an advanced stage. The present work is the third in the series and breaks away from the previous two in this that it is not on a philosophical theme. Since as per declaration, this volume is Part I, a second one is expected on Vardhamana-Mahavira, before attention is given to another philosophical topic.
Strictly speaking, no life sketch of Vardhamana Mahavira was produced during his life-time or shortly after his death by any one who had seen him and known him, and the only thing that we know from early canonical texts, like the Acaranga, is stray reference or a few place names he had visited and persons he had inspired, which could never be the source material for the preparation of a biography. The earliest biography of Mahavira, Parsva and Adinatha Rsabha, Kalpa Sutra of Bhadrabahu, is a production after a gap of 2 centuries, when Mahavira had ceased to be a man and had become a memory, a tradition, a sanctified personality, a beacon light. The kalpa Sutra uses a mechanical model in which all the 23 Tirthankaras are made to fit in, and the mechanical model itself is too scrapy because a Tirthankara. who comes with a spiritual mission, has no earthly axe to grind. The Kalpa Sutra itself has received the touch of many hands, besides that of Bhadrabahu. The only one point in favour of this early work is that as a biographical sketch of all the Tirthankaras, it has been widely revered and used, and it still enjoys an eminent position. Quotations from the Kalpa Sutra have found place in the present compilation.
But by and large the source material for the present work, a much later production, which grew apace till the genesis of the medieval period, is the handiwork of lesser persons, the Sectarian heads called Acaryas, who built up the life-story of VardhamanaMahavira depending on the hypothesis that Mahavira was a god-man and enshrouding him with supernatural events whenever he went to establish his super human character, a process not discarded by devotees even in the twentieth century, the more so in the case of Mahavira who stood apart from his would-be biographers, separated by
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