Panchastikay Samaysar

Author(s): Kundkundacharya, Pannalal Bakliwal
Publisher: Paramshrut Prabhavak Mandal

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the members of the firm not to correspond with him, unless he wrote to them. He used to retire into the forests of Gujerat and there pass days and weeks in meditation and yoga. He always tried to conceal his identity and whereabouts, and, in spite of that, he was often found out followed by a large number of people, eager to listen to his preaching and advice.
After ten years of business life, he felt that he had accomplished the object with which he had entered business. He expressed his desire to severe his connection with it. Knowledge, possession of wealth, social position, the enjoyment of family happiness (for Shrimad had parents, one married brother, four married sisters, a wife, two sons and two daughters, all living ), he was preparing to renounce the world and lead the life of an ascetic. In the meantime, in his 32nd year, his health gave way. He was treated by a number of competent medical men. And once there was a change for the better. A relapse, however, followed, and after an illness of more than a year, in spite of competent medical treatment and good nursing by devoted disciples, he quietly passed away on the 9th ultimo, (April, 1901) at Rajkot, Kathiawad. During his long and painful illness he never uttered a sigh or a groan. He was cheerful while all others around him were despondent.
Besides scattered poems he has written several works. His Moksha Mala has already been published. This work is the keynote of Jainism. This, he had written at the age of seventeen. Among his unpublished works there are Atman-Siddhi-Upaya and Panchastikaya, and several essays on the Atman or soul. The corner-stone of the Jain religion and philosophy is the theory of Karma, in which he strongly believed. He thought of writing a convincing treatise on this theory, and a series of works on the principles taught by the Great Mahavira, but unfortunately he was prevented from doing so by his long illness. He had also solved several difficult problems of religion. After careful study of the Jain and the Buddhist literature, he had come to the conclusion that both Mahavira and Budha were different personages, their principles were quite different and the belief of European scholars, that Jainism was the offspring of Buddhism was not well founded. He said, that in the Jain manuscripts, of two thousand years old, it was clearly stated that the great Mahavira and the Great Buddha were hard religious competitors. Shrimad had also maintained that the two chief sects of Jainism,—the Digambara and the Swetambara-were the outcome of irregular condition of the country.
The above short sketch of his life is sufficient to show that, Shrimad Rajchandra was in every way a remarkable man. His mental powers