Ācārya Kundakunda’s Niyamasāra – The Essence of Soul-adoration (With Authentic Explanatory Notes)

[Vijay K Jain]

Main Author: Ācārya Kundakunda

Other Author: Vijay K. Jain

Divine Blessings: Ācārya 108 Vidyānanda Muni

Foreword: Dr. Chakravarthi Nainar Devakumar

Publisher: Dehradun : Vikalp Printers, May 2019

Subjects: Jainism – Doctrines – Early works to 1800

Jaina Philosophy – Early works to 1800

Faith, Knowledge, Conduct, Liberation

Description: lxiv + 342 p. ; 24 cm x 17 cm

ISBN: 9788193272633

Format: Book; Hard-bound

Language Note: In Prakrit; translation in Hindi and English; explanatory notes and prefatory matter in English.

‘Niyamasāra’ by Ācārya Kundakunda (circa 1st century BC) is among the finest spiritual texts that we are able to lay our hands on in the present era. The treatise expounds, with authority, the nature of the soul (ātmā) from the real, transcendental point-of-view (niścayanaya). It expounds the essence of the objects of knowledge, and, by the word ‘niyama’, the path to liberation. ‘Niyamasāra’ is the Word of the Omniscient Lord. It has the power to bestow ineffable happiness of liberation that is utterly rid of attachment, without obstruction, eternal, and sense-independent. This happiness is attained by meditating on the perfect-soul-substance which is pristine, and endowed with four qualities of infinite-knowledge, imperishable, indestructible, and indivisible. Worthy men aspiring for supreme happiness who comprehend this Scripture without contradiction of the empirical (vyavahāra) and the transcendental (niścaya) points-of-view are able to adopt conduct that leads their souls to the desired goal. By concentrating on the pure (śuddha) and inseparable (abheda) ‘Three Jewels’ (ratnatraya), eternal happiness appertaining to the perfect-soul-substance is attained. ‘Niyamasāra’ discourses right exertion for the soul and its fruit, the supreme liberation.

 

Niyamasara-F-2019.pdf