Ācārya Vidyāsāgara — A Eulogy

[Vijay K Jain]

Ācārya Vidyāsāgara (1946-2024) has undoubtedly been among the most influential and acclaimed Jaina ascetics during the last quarter of the twentieth century and the first quarter of the twenty-first century. Throughout his entire life, he drank the nectar of dharma and at the end embraced pious death through sallekhanā, strictly as per the Doctrine expounded in the Scripture. His influence through his profound preachings and, more importantly, through his worthy disciple-saints will illumine our universe for centuries.

 

His life was the epitome of the quintessence of reality that the Jaina Doctrine expounds: “The soul is distinct from the matter and the matter is distinct from the soul.” There is an utter distinction — atyantābhāva — between the body and the soul; these two can never, in the three times, acquire the attributes of one another. The body is known through the instrument of the senses and the soul by self-experience. The soul has consciousness (cetanā) and is incorporeal (amūrta) whereas the body has no consciousness and is corporeal (mūrta). In its worldly state, the soul is always accompanied by the body. This perhaps is the cause of confusion about the relationship between the two.

 

After knowing the true nature of the soul and the karmic matter, Ācārya Vidyāsāgara engaged himself in the practice of ridding his soul of the bondage of the karmic shackles. He reckoned that the soul is pure consciousness and all dispositions, auspicious and inauspicious, are alien to it. Further, only the various forms of the karmas have kept his soul confined to and whirling in the mire of the world. When all karmas associated with the soul are annihilated, there is no cause for the soul to wander further in the cycle of worldly existence.

 

At the time of sallekhanā he turned his soul inwards and relinquished all outward concerns, including the responsibilities of his huge congregation.

 

In his next incarnation, Ācārya Vidyāsāgara is destined to enjoy the long-lasting happiness appertaining to the heavenly being of the fourth order as a vaimānika deva. In a subsequent incarnation, he is bound to get freed from all worldly sufferings and attain ineffable bliss appertaining to the state of liberation (nirvāṇa).

 

I make obeisance humble at the Most Worshipful feet of Ācārya Vidyāsāgara.

 

Vijay K. Jain, Dehradun

19 February, 2024