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FOREWORD
अादि पुरुष आदीश जिन आदि सुविधि कर्तार ।
धर्मधुरन्धर परम गुरु न, आदि अवतार । To the first PERFECT MAN, the Lord of Conquerors, the first most Excellent Arranger of things, the support of Dharma, the Supreme Teacher,
Salutation ! Risabha Deva was the founder of Jainism in the current cycle of time. He was a man, but became Immortal and a Tirthamkara (Teaching God), and taught the Path of Perfecticn to others. Innumerable souls have benefited by his Teaching. There have been twenty-three subsequent Tirthamkaras who re-affirmed His doctrine. He flourished very very far back in the remoteness of lioary antiquity. His life story will be delineated in the following pages. The account is based on the Jaina scripture entitled the Adi Puranã and on certain works on the Jaina Law. The date of Risabha Deva's age is simply unfixable; all that can be said about His time is that it was anterior to all forms of rational religion; for all mytho. logies, all allegories, of all lands and people that have a rational interpretation, yield only fragments of the Truth taught by him, when properly interpreted, and would be quite unintelligible and misleading with
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