ABSTRACT
The main source of Kånj⁄ Svåm⁄’s fame was his charismatic preaching, much of which was recorded on tape. He never wrote any books or treatises and indeed did not claim to be saying anything new but merely to be reiterating the words of Mahåv⁄ra and Kundakunda.67 His discourses often took the form of running commentaries on Kundakunda’s writings and a typical day at the Kånj⁄ Svåm⁄ Panth’s centre at Songa∂h still centres around an exposition of this sort at morning, noon and night. Kånj⁄ Svåm⁄’s ideas were very much those of the mainstream Digambara mystical tradition in which Jainism was presented in purely spiritual terms and the ‘Essence of the Doctrine’ was regarded by him as indeed being the essence of all Jain teachings.68 He ignored mundane topics, such as dietary prescriptions, in his preaching on the basis that all Jains would inevitably know about such matters, and his teachings were directed solely to the subject of the soul and Kundakunda’s representation of it as the one eternal and unconditioned entity, the correct understanding of which gives human existence meaning and constitutes the only true religion.69
