Dhyana Battisi

SR No.: 022342
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jerome Petit
Publisher: Hindi Granth Karyalay
Publication Year: 2010
Total Pages: 28
Language: English, Sanskrit
Classification: Book_English & Book_Devnagari
File Size: 7 MB

Page 6

But ritual was never enough for Banārasīdās in whom religious thought and effort
to attain the Supreme Self had never ceased to exist along with the scents and the vicissitudes of worldly life. In 1623, Banārasīdās met Arathmal Dhor, a member of the Adhyātma movement, who gave him to read the Samayasāra of Kundakunda along with a commentary in Hindi by Rājamall. This text provoked in him a real philosophical shock which led him into an extreme anti-ritualism. In this major text of the Digambara thought, Kundakunda exposes the true innate nature of the Self (Ātman) and the difference between a conventional point of view (vyavahāra-naya) and an absolute point of view (niscaya-naya). The Samayasāra was one of the texts which was to form the basis of the discussions in the Adhyātmika groups. Banārasīdās soon joined them and became one of its important members. The Adhyātma movement had emerged in the mid-sixteenth century. It consisted mainly of secular meetings of laymen of all Jaina persuasions who read and commented Digambara texts and discussed the possibility of attaining the Supreme Self (Paramātman). Members were confidently anti-ritualistic and tried to internalize the philosophical principles of the Jain religion rather than engage in a series of ritual actions seen as meaningless. We know the predominant position held by Banārasīdās in this movement through the Yuktiprabodha, a controversial text written by Meghavijaya, a Svetāmbara monk from the late seventeenth century, in which members of the Adhyātma are called “Varanasiya” or “followers of Banārasī". The Adhyātma movement has also formed the basis of the Terāpanthi Digambara sect whose intellectual structure was established by Pandit Todarmal (first half of the 18th century) who claimed to be a follower of Banārasīdās.
In 1635, Banārasīdās made another major encounter in the person of Rūpachand Pande who introduced him to the Gommațasāra of Nemicandra (10th century)