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which I have given above. The image is about 57 feet high, and yet every limb and minor limb is in exquisite proportion. It is impossible to convey its glory and artistic excellence in words. Anyone who has the chance of seeing it personally will easily agree with the hitherto general opinion.

This also provides an answer to those critics who call the Jainas idolatrous. The Jainas do not worship the stone, silver, gold, or diamond of which the images are made. They worship the qualities of total renunciation of the world, the acquisition of undisturbed harmony with the infinite, and the identity of the liberated soul with everlasting peace, which these images represent.

To quote Shakespeare with a slight adaptation:

“Ah me! How sweet is Jina itself possessed,
When but Jina’s shadows are so rich in joy!”
(Romeo and Juliet)

Where I substitute “Jina” for “Love.” It is clear how irresistible and experientially axiomatic the peace and guidance given by the Arhats the worthy ones or those who have attained liberation and omniscient beings must have been, when their mere images are so potent with grace, peace, and inspiration.

So much for the origin of the name Gommaṭasāra.

A noticeable feature about Gommaṭasāra is that the author has always followed the earliest known beacon-lights of Jainism after Lord Mahavira’s Moksha liberation. The most known of these lights is Bhadrabahu (the 5th Shruta-Kevali a scholar who knows the sacred scriptures, 162 years after Vardhamana/Mahavira). He was the preceptor of the Mauryan Emperor Chandragupta, who became a saint and was called Prabha Chandra, and who renounced the body at Kata vapra Hill, Chandragiri, Shravanabelgula, just in front of the feet of the great Bahubali.

Shri Nemi Chandra also follows the tradition of Shri Kunda-Kundacharya, who flourished in the first century B.C., 49 years after the era of Vikram Samvat (see Introduction to Panchastikaya S.B.J. Vol. III). As an authority on the learned Jaina scriptures, he is second only to Shri Gautama Ganadhara, the chief of all saints, who directly received the discourses of Lord Mahavira delivered from his unquivering lips in a letterless voice, and who expounded the principles of the Jaina religion. Shri Kunda-Kundacharya has composed, among others, the wonderful works on Jaina metaphysics called Samayasara, Niyamasara, Panchastikaya Samayasara, and Pravachana Sara. He also followed the tradition of Uma Swami, who occupied the pontifical seat after Shri Kunda-Kundacharya and gave to the world the Jaina Bible, Tatvartha Sutra.