Risabha Deva

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Jain Mitra Mandal

Page 60

44
RISABH DEVA
sang His praises for a long time. He then took his seat in the Men's Hall, and asked to be enlightened on the Spiritual Science by the WORLD TEACHER, who then began His Discourse.
The Discourse Divine was like a shower of amrita (ambrosia), so tranquilizing, so cooling so satisfying was it to all ! The voice of the Lord could be heard distinctly all round, and it was also being rendered into different spoken tongues by the devas, in different part of the great Hall.
The Lord's Discourse described the nature of the world in plain terms. It dealt with the nature of the existing substances and their attributes and showed how different properties came into existence when substances got intermingled. Amongst the substances the most important are Spirit and Matter, whose fusion is the cause of all the misery that there exists in the world. The Lord described the true tattvas (essentials of knowledge), and gave a detailed description of the entire subject of bondage and release of the souls. The knowledge imparted, constitutes wliat is known as Sruta Jnana, and crmprised all the eleven angas and the fourteen purvas of the Science of Salvation, as Religion may be termed. Every one understood what the WORLD TEACHER said; no one was mystified, no one misled ! Tirthamkaras do not indulge in metaphor and parable, and never resort to allegory to hide the import of a doctrine. Those who were present were filled. Their questions were answered there and then, in the un-akshari speech wich has