Book Title: Rushibhashit Sutra
Author(s): Vinaysagar, Sagarmal Jain, Kalanath Shastri, Dineshchandra Sharma
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy
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originally belong to the Nirgranth tradition, still he was given a respectable place there.
We find mention of Ramaputta in Buddhist tradition also. According to the information available in Pali Tripitak190 his full name was Uddak Ramaputta and he was older than Buddha. In the begining Buddha took training of meditational practices from Ramaputta, and when he attained omniscience he wanted to go and preach him; knowing his potential. But it was too late, as Ramaputta had died by then. Thus he was an elder 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, perceive 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
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