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Rishibhashit : A Study
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contemporary of Buddha and Mahavir. Pali Tripitak also conveys that he had his own peculiar style of yoga practices as well as a respectable number of followers. Buddha respected him.
The preachings of Ramaputta in this chapter are in prose. First of all it mentions about two types of death, one is the pleasant death (death within meditation) and the other is the unpleasant death (death out of meditation). It has also been explained here that in order to get liberation from the mundane bondages one should practice Jnana (knowledge), Darshan (perception), and Charitra (conduct). A mendicant should comprehend through Jnana, percieve through Darshan, and discipline through conduct, and disintegrate the microparticles of Karma through ascetic practices.
A developed form of this school of thought can be seen in an ancient canon like Uttaradhyayan sutra. In the fifth chapter of Uttaradhyayan the two types of death have been explained in details. The 28th chapter states about knowing through Jnana, believing through Darshan, accepting through conduct, and cleaning through ascetic practices. Uttardhyayan also says about shedding of Karmic particles through ascetic practices. But still the text of Rishibhashit is older than Uttaradhyayan. This is because the language and style of Rishibhashit is older than Uttardhyayan. For 'Dasanena Saddahe' it mentions 'Dasanaina pasitta' which is of older style; because the transformation of meaning of Darshan from perception to faith is a much later incident in Jain tradition. Also it appears that the prevailing conception of eight classifications of Karma must have had its origin in theories of Ramaputta. All this goes to prove that Ramaputta was a revered Acharya of Sraman tradition, senior to Mahavir and Buddha. Also, that Ramaputta of Rishibhashit, Sutrakritang and Pali Tripitak are one person. He has also been named as Uddak Ramaputta.
24. HARIGIRI
The twentyfourth chapter of Rishibhashit191 contains the preachings of Harigiri. We do not find any information about Harigiri from any source other than Rishibhashit. As such it is difficult to say much about his personality. As regards his preachings, the first thing he says is that earlier all was Bhavya (decided or preordained) but now everything is Abhavya (undecided or not pre-ordained). The meaning of this statement is that as long as an individual is ignorant (illusioned) his present is dependent on bondage of the earlier (previous life) karma or decided or
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