Parmatma Prakash

Author(s): Yogindra Acharya
Publisher: Central Jaina Publishing House

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INTRODUCTION.
nature of their own souls. These Holy Ones are the great Beacon Lights whom we must follow if we would attain the summit of Perfection attained by them. There is no question of begging or bargaining with them for our worldly benefits, nor of favours to be purchased by gross flattery or the making of gifts. Those who are anxious for the welfare of their souls will find their leadership to be the only medium of Emancipation, and must walk in their footsteps to realise the highest aspirations of their souls.
It only remains to point out the reason why the holy portals of Nirvana are said to be closed against the residents of our part of the world in the present period of time. Jainism divides the ages of the world into two main periods, the Avasarpini and the Utsarpini. Each of these is again sub-divided into six parts called aras (spokes). We are now passing on the Avasarpini arc, and the present era is the fifth which began about 2,500 years ago. The first of these aras is called the sukhma-sukhma, (lit., happiness-happiness, hence, the age of great felicity), the second, sukhma, the third sukhma-dukhma (literally, happiness-pain, hence, the period of mixed pleasure and pain, with the former preponderating), the fourth, dukhma-sukhma (pain preponderating over felicity), the fifth, ie, the present one, dukhma (painful), and the sixth dukhma-dukhma which is very painful. The number of years allotted to the first four periods is so great that the modern mind has not hesitated to stigmatize it as absurd, though in the absence of anything to show that time came into existence, for the first time, only a finite number of years ago, the supposed absurdity cau only lie in the calculations of those who would like to gather up iufinity in the limited dimensions of their concept of the pitcher of finitude. The last two periods, the fifth and the sixth, are only of 21,000 years each.
The Avasarpini is the arc of descent which opens in great prosperity, but ends in extreme pain for the living beings. In the first kala (time, or a period of time), the sukhma-sukhma, people enjoy enormous longevity and possess the stature of giants ; in the sixth, the dukhma-dukhma, the average duration of life is reduced to 16 years and the stature to a cubit in height. Everything else deteriorates in the same way, neither