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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
700
Ātman and Moksa
ideal Vaişņava as one who realises the sufferings of others, helps others, but is free from pride, prays to Him as present in all the things, speaks no ill of others, has controlled all his senses, has cultivated renunciation and abandoned all desires, has developed the sense of equality for all and loves the name of Rāma.'
Narasimha has depicted in his Srngāramālā and Surata-sangrama in a most romantic way the sport of the jiva with the Lord Kțşya by using the metaphor of the sport of a young couple of loving persons in their privacy. But it has to be understood only symbolically. Narasimha was a highly spiritually developed person. The amorous sports depicted in his songs are, therefore, the spiritual communications of the soul (jiva) with the Divine Lord. Narasimha was a mystic like other medieval saints and his experience of the communion with the Lord has been described as one of madhurabhāva, the tremendous love and devotion of the Gopis for the Lord Krşņa. The metaphor of Gopi and Krşğa was inevitably used to indicate the utmost intimacy of faith and love for each other. The way of the realisation of God is more agreeable and pleasing being freed of the austerity, rigor, monotony, and hardship which are usually the accompaniments of penance. Narasimha has shown a simple and more pleasing way of achieving salvation, and it could be practised by the people of all castes and even by those who were quite ignorant of the traditional philosophical
1 Desai I. C. (Editor) : Narasimha Mehtaksta Kavyasaingraha, Song 148, pp. 54-55.
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