Counting to Infinity: An introduction to Absolute Numeral System
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Some words about this research work
One day I stumbled upon a pustak - "Gommatsar Jeevkand in Charts and Tables". In that, I read one very interesting thing in it's preface chapter. It was about Jainism's Alaukik Ganit (Mathematics). There I learnt that Innumerable and Infinity values can also be calculated! And I was very very interested to know where and how it is used in Jain Cosmology. And there, I started swadhyay of "Gommatsar Jeevkand - Samyaggyaan chandrika Tika" granth. And after completing its swadhyay I was full of pride, knowledge, vairagya and awe about Jainism's greatness in the fields of cosmology and mathematics.
So then, I decided to write a structured research paper about it. This paper was submitted as a "Review paper" and was accepted under some Engineering/Science Journal. For which, I had to pay Rs. 4000 to get it published. Now, this got me thinking - shall I go with it or not? Some thoughts -
- Is it worth to share the pure and great knowledge available in scriptures in Journals which are -
- Read without any vinay or vivek of this divine knowledge
- Read with generally a purpose of materialistic passions and possessions
- Mostly for Engineering and Science work. And it will be read as any other book or write-up.
- Maybe misused and wrongly-interpreted because lack of spiritual context
- The original Shastra (Dhavala, Gommatsar etc.); eventhough being priceless, the cost is < Rs. 100. And most Jain Shastras are. And they possess 100x more information than this paper (as this is a very small portion of the main scriptures). I wanted people to read about this topic. Then how does it make sense to spend Rs. 4000 on this? With that much money I can do so much better work to spread spiritual knowledge.
And that's why
- I decided to make this research work public for everyone to read, learn and absorb.
- As this was never a "research" work. And the content inside it was always "public".
- The great Jain Saints have written these scriptures for everyone. No barriers of religion, nationality, caste, tribe, etc. Knowledge was never transactional. Money can never buy any spiritual learnings. And vice-versa - you cannot trade Spiritual knowledge by money. So it made complete sense to not publish under a paid research journal.
What were the next steps to spread knowledge instead?
- I started putting graphics-based knowledge content on instagram page about Jainism.
- I started sending and gifting spiritual books to my fellow Sadharmis.