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PREFACE
मंगलं भगवान्वीरो मंगलं गौतमो गणी । मंगलं कुन्दकुन्दार्यो जैनधर्मोऽस्तु मंगलम् ॥
These four are auspicious (mangala) - Lord Mahāvīra (the Omniscient Tīrthańkara), Gautamasvāmi (the Apostle - ganadhara - who assimilates the Word of Lord Mahāvīra), Acārya Kundakunda (the great composer of the Scripture), and the Jaina
dharma' (the conduct or dharma' based on the teachings of Lord Mahāvīra).
The name of Acārya Kundakunda has an auspicious significance and is uttered with great veneration. Almost universally, the Jainas - ascetics (muni, sramana) and laymen (śrāvaka) - recite the above verse as a mark of auspiciousness at the start of their activities.
The Scripture (āgama) – the Word of the Omniscient Lord
There were eleven ganadhara in Lord Mahāvīra's (599-527 BCE) congregation, with Gautamasvāmi, also known as Indrabhūti, as his chief disciple. After liberation (nirvāņa) of Lord Mahāvīra, sequentially, in the course of next sixty-two years, three anubaddha kevali attained omniscience (kevalajñāna) - Gautamasvāmi, Sudharmācārya, and Jambusvāmi. They are called 'sequential' or 'anubaddha'kevali because of the fact that Gautamasvāmi attained omniscience on the day Lord Mahāvīra attained liberation, and so on. During the course of the next one hundred years, five śrutakevalīl had complete knowledge of the ‘āgama'; they were Nandi, Nandimitra,
1 Lord Jina, the illuminator of the world, has expounded that, for sure, the one
who, on the authority of his knowledge of the Scripture - bhāvaśrutajñāna - knows entirely, by his own soul, the all-knowing nature of the soul is the śrutakevali. (see 'Pravacanasāra', verse 1-33) The Omniscient (the kevali), with his unparalleled and eternal, infiniteknowledge, experiences simultaneously the supreme nature of his soul through the soul. The śrutakevalī, with his knowledge of the Scripture, experiences consecutively the supreme nature of his soul through the soul. Both, the Omniscient and the śrutakevalī, know the nature of the Reality. The difference is
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