Ācārya Pūjyapāda’s (circa 5th century CE) Samādhitantram is a spiritual work consisting of 105 verses outlining the path to liberation for the inspired soul. Living beings have three kinds of soul – the extroverted-soul (bahirātmā), the introverted-soul (antarātmā), and the pure-soul (paramātmā). The one who mistakes the body and the like for the soul is the extroverted-soul (bahirātmā). The extroverted-soul spends his entire life in delusion and suffers (...) throughout. The one who entertains no delusion about psychic dispositions – imperfections like attachment and aversion, and soul-nature – is the introverted-soul (antarātmā). The knowledgeable introverted-soul disconnects the body, including the senses, from the soul. The one who is utterly pure and rid of all karmic dirt is the pure-soul (paramātmā). Samādhitantram expounds the method of realizing the pure-soul, the light of supreme knowledge, and infinite bliss. Realization of the pure-soul is contingent upon discriminatory knowledge of the soul and the non-soul, and meditating incessantly on the pure-soul, rejecting everything that is non-soul. Samādhitantram answers the vexed question, ‘Who am I?’ in forceful and outrightly logical manner, in plain words. No one, the ascetic or the householder, can afford not to realize the Truth contained in the treatise, comprehend it through and through, and change his conduct accordingly. (shrink)

Ātmānuśāsana (commonly spelled as Atmanushasan) by Ācārya Guņabhadra presents profound concepts of the Jaina Doctrine in a form that is easily understood. Remarkable for its poetry and meaning, it expounds that right faith (samyagdarśana) is the cause of merit, and wrong faith of demerit. To have belief in the true nature of substances is right faith. Dharma is the man’s most excellent possession. The conduct that leads to merit is dharma and it results in happiness after destroying misery. Whether happy (...) or miserable, dharma should be the only pursuit of man. True happiness is not the momentary sprinkling of the pleasures of the senses. Long-life, wealth and sound body are obtained from the previously earned merit (puņya). Under the spell of sinful karmas, the man experiences misery. Excellent men with discrimination work hard, incessantly and cheerfully, for the sake of their future lives. The happiness attained through austerity (tapa) can never be attained by craving for wealth. No dust of disgrace ever touches the feet of the man fortified by austerity. The ascetic goes on to perform austerity while protecting his body, for a very long time. Through the power of austerity he vanquishes his natural enemies, like the passions of anger, etc. In the after-life, he automatically and speedily attains liberation as the culmination of his human effort. (shrink)

Ācārya Kundakunda’s (circa 1st century BCE) Rayaṇasāra makes it clear that the right-faith (samyagdarśana) is the beginning as well as the culmination of the path to liberation – mokṣa-mārga. The householder (śrāvaka) must first acquire the right-faith – the Quintessential Jewel (Rayaṇasāra) – to be able to establish his Self on to the path to liberation. As he acquires the right-faith he begins to appreciate the reality of the world and the worldly-existence. He then exerts to acquire the true knowledge (...) (jñāna) as expounded in the Doctrine (siddhānta), and adopts the laudable conduct (cāritra) by becoming a digambara-ascetic (nirgrantha muni). He ascends the spiritual-stages (guṇasthāna) and ultimately, through pure-meditation (śukla-dhyāna), attains the ineffable and eternal bliss appertaining to liberation (mokṣa). Ācārya Kundakunda, all through this Holy Scripture Rayaṇasāra, underscores the importance of the right-faith (samyagdarśana) for the householder (śrāvaka) as well as the ascetic (muni, śramaṇa). He asserts that in the (present) unfavourable fifth era the study – svādhyāya – of the Scripture, indeed, is meditation (dhyāna); it results in the subjugation of the five-senses (paṅcendriya) as well as of the passions (kaṣāya). (shrink)