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CHAPTER I
33
Parameşti has still a body even after attaining Omniscience or Kevala-Jñana. It is with the help of this body that He is able to preach the dharma (Truth) to the people, because His main function is dharma-prabhavana or proclaiming the Dharma. His worshippers both human and divine praise His body in their adoration. The adoration of an Arhat consists in the enunciation of the marvellous characteristics of His body-such as its beauty and excellence, its freedom from natural impurities and defects, and that it is the cynosure of attraction and grace, that it is the fountain source of peace and harmony, that it is the physical embodiment of the eternal values of Truth, Goodness and Beauty. The term Acarya implies the master of a Samgha who in his turn transmits the divine message to his disciples and through them to the whole world. It is not necessary to emphasise the fact that in his case also adoration very often implies praising the beauty of his body as the embodiment of a great
soul.
The bewildered and the doubting disciple naturally asks his master: "If the soul is of supreme importance and if the body being acetana is without any spiritual grace and hence to be discarded as worthless, how can we justify the various songs of devotion of Arhanta and Acarya, songs which are but the praise of their physical beauty and grace. If the songs in adoration are valid, would it not be proper to infer that after all, the soul and the body are not so fundamentally different ?"
The author clears the doubt expressed above by explaining the doctrine of naya or points of view.
ववहारणभो भासदि जीवो देहो य हवदि खलु एक्को । णदु णिच्छयस्स जीवो देहो य कदावि एक्कट्ठो ॥२७॥ vavaharaṇao bhāsadi jivo deho ya havadi khalu ekko hadu nicchayassa jivo deho ya kadavi ekkaṭṭho (27) व्यवहारनयो भाषते बीवो देहश्व भवति खल्वेकः ।
न तु निश्चयस्य जीवो देहश्च कदाप्येकार्थः ॥२७॥
27. The vyavahara point of view indeed declares that body and soul are one, but according to the niscaya point of view, the soul and body are never identical,
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