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Acharya Kundakunda was the first and foremost of all the Acharyas who flourished after Bhagavan Mahavira and Gautama Ganadhara. Inscriptions and literature hold him more auspicious than the Jaina law itself.
Samayasara, one of his mounting works, signifies the truth of spirituality. The philosophy interknit in it is a puritanic type with no room for tantra and mantra. Acharya Amritachandra, a great thinker and master of social science of tenth century A.D., tried to beautifully illustrate the metrical aphorisms of Samayasara. Based on the same is the commentary in English by Prof. A. Chakravarti, a leading Indologist of this century.
To introduce both the text and its commentary Prof. Chakravarti has discussed in no less than one hundred pages: self in European thought, self in Indian thought, rediments of Upanishadic though in the Samhitas, the evolution of the cosmos from the primeval Prakriti, a discussion of dreams and hallucination, and self in modern science. Carrying the weight of a post-doctoral research this voluminous Introduction is an appropriate answer to the questions like: Is the mechanistic and materialistic philosophy reconcilable with spirituality which is often labelled with intellectual immaturity, primitive superstition and even psychopathy?
Bharatiya Jnanpith is happy to present this third edition to the scholarly world and to these contemplating the self. And it is a timely programme during this year which is being celebrated as the 2000th anniversary of Acharya Kunda-kunda.
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