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Niyamasāra
नियमसार
However, the discourse is of no use if the learner knows only the empirical point-of-view (uyavahāranaya); the transcendental point-of-view (niscayanaya) must never be lost sight of. Just like for the man who has not known the lion, the cat symbolizes the lion, in the same way, the man not aware of the transcendental point-of-view (niscayanaya) wrongly assumes the empirical point-of-view (vyavahāranaya) as the Truth. The learner who, after understanding the true nature of substances from both the transcendental as well as the empirical points-of-view, gets unbiased toward any of these gets the full benefit of the teachings. Ācārya Amstcandra, in ‘Puruşārthasiddhyupāya', expresses beautifully the indespensability of both points-of-view - niscaya and uyavahāra - to arrive at the Truth:
एकनाकर्षन्ती श्लथयन्ती वस्तुतत्त्वमितरेण । अन्तेन जयति जैनीनीतिर्मन्थाननेत्रमिव गोपी ॥२२५॥
Like the milkmaid who, while churning (to produce butter), pulls one end of the rope while loosening the other, the Jaina philosophy, using dual means - the pure, transcendental point-of-view (niscayanaya), and the empirical point-of-view (vyavahāranaya) - deals with the nature of substances, and succeeds in arriving at the Truth.
The glory of 'Niyamasāra'
‘Niyamasāra’ is among the finest spiritual texts that we are able to lay our hands on in the present era. Only a supreme ascetic who is dispassionate (vītarāga), rid of delusion (moha) about the soul-nature, introverted (antarātmā), and with the capacity to experience the pure-cognition (śuddhopayoga), can expound with authority the nature of the soul (ātmā) from the real, transcendental point-of-view (niscayanaya). But such an ascetic will hardly have any reason or inclination to compose the Scripture for the benefit of the others. The ways of the Supreme-Beings (parameșthī), however, are amazing; the Omniscient (kevalī) delivers his divine discourse without him having any desire to do so! Fortunate are we that Acārya Kundakunda was impelled to compose this Scripture to enlighten us. The subject matter of Niyamasāra' would have remained intractable for
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