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The Jaina tradition has a natural three-tier universe. Its vast middle universe has a high mountain-called Sumeru in its centre. There are four grand forests on it at its different strata of heights named as:
(1) Bhadra-śāla: Sacred forest, (2) Nandana, (3) Saumanasa, Benevolent forest
full of flowers, and (4) Pānduka on the top: Pale-white
forest. The middle Jaina universe indicates that Nandanavana is the second one somewhat at strata of higher level than the ground level. This Nandanavana' (Gladdening forest) is also a flower orchard of literary forests, at a somewhat academic level. It is quite vast. It has been arranged by Dr. N. L. Jain- the noted Jaina scholar and scientist. It has two mini gardens of Hindi and English, which have 24 subject-trees, having about 195 branches (articles etc). It has a cluster of fifty books and booklets. The subjecttrees include canons, religion, science, archeology, chemistry, travel, biography and autobiography etc. The books and booklets include original and translated books on Jainology along with a variety of subjects. The branches of articles have many categories. These have been presented separately in the appendices. It is only few important subjects (trees), books (clusters) and articles (branches) which have been selected for this multiform literary forest.
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