Ācārya Kundakunda’s Niyamasāra – The Essence of Soul-adoration (With Authentic Explanatory Notes)
By: Divine Blessings : Ācārya 108 Vidyānanda Muni
Publisher: Vikalp Printers
Published: 2019
Place of publication: Dehradun, India
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 406
ISBN-13: 9788193272633
Other titles: Niyamasara
Notes: ‘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.
Table of contents: title: THE SOUL
label: Chapter-1; title: THE NON-SOUL
label: Chapter-2; title: THE PURE THOUGHT-ACTIVITY
label: Chapter-3; title: THE EMPIRICAL RIGHT CONDUCT
label: Chapter-4; title: THE REAL REPENTANCE
label: Chapter-5; title: THE REAL RENUNCIATION
label: Chapter-6; title: THE SUPREME CONFESSION (INTROSPECTION)
label: Chapter-7; title: THE REAL EXPIATION
label: Chapter-8; title: THE SUPREME MEDITATION
label: Chapter-9; title: THE SUPREME DEVOTION
label: Chapter-10; title: THE SUPREME ESSENTIAL
label: Chapter-11; title: THE PURE-COGNITION
label: Chapter-12