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LORD MAHAVIRA (Continued from September 1974)
« on: February 19, 2007, 08:48:50 AM »
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  • By :    Prof. Vaman H.  Pandit

    MAHAVIRA'S INITIATION

    Jainism, though it denies the existence of a Creator but His existence is accepted as undoubted; accordingly, in the account of Mahavira's initiation we shall find many of the old Hindu gods represented as being present.

    This initiation, all sects agree, took place when Mahavira was about thirty years of age, some time between 570 and 569 B.C. The Naya clan, to which he belonged seems to have supported a body of monks who followed the rule of Parsvanath, an ascetic who had lived some two hundred and fifty years before Mahavira. It was naturally to this order, probably considered rather irregular by the Brahmans, that the thoughts of Mahavira turned. Its monks had their cell in a park outside the Ksatriya suburb ( Kundagrama) of Vaisali, and in the centre of this park grew one of those evergreen Asoka or 'sorrowless' trees, whose leaves are supposed never to know either grief or pain. The Asoka tree is always associated with Mahavira, for the legends say that in his later life an Asoka tree grew wherever he preached, and it was now under its shade that he made the great renunciation and entered upon that ascetic life, whose austerities were to dry up all the founts of karama and free him from the sorrowful cycle of rebirth.
    Mahavira had fasted for two and a half days, not even allowing water to cross his lips, and had then given away all his property, which can only have been the ordinary possession of the cadet of a small House. But which the love of his followers has exaggerated into the wealth of a (mighty emperor. Then followed by a train of gods and men he was carried in a palanquin to the park and alighting, took his seat on a five-tired throne, which was so placed as to face the east. There he stripped himself of all his ornaments and finery flinging them to the attendant god Vaisramana, who caught them up as they fell.

    Most Hindu mendicants cut or shave off their hair, but a peculiar and most painful custom of the 'jains is that all ascetics, as a proof of their power of endurance, must tear out their hair by the roots. One Jain writer declares in his English book ‘Life of Mahavira' that 'only those can do it, who have no love with their flesh and bones'. It is looked on as a sign that henceforth the monk or nun will take no thought for the body.

    The Jain mark with great precision the five degrees of knowledge that lead to Omniscience. Mahavira, they say, was born with the first three Mati Jnana, Sruta, Jnana and Avadhi Jnana. He now gained the fourth kind of knowledge, Manahparyaya Jnana by which he knew the thoughts of all sentient beings of five senses in the two and a half continents, and it only remained for him to obtain the fifth degree of knowledge that of Kevala Jnana or Omniscience, which is possessed by the Kevali alone.
    The Digambaras. however, do not believe that Mahavira obtained the fourth kind of knowledge till some time after his initiation. According to them, he failed to gain it, though he performed meditation for six months, sitting absolutely motionless. At the end of the six months he went to Kulapura; the king of Kulapura, Kuladhipa, came and did him honour, washed his feet with his own hands and having walked around him three times, offered him rice and milk. These Mahavira accepted and took them as his first meal (Paranum) after a fast of six months. He returned to the forest and performed twelve types of penance, but still the knowledge was withheld from him. At last he visited Ujjayini (Ujjain) and did penance in a cemetery there, when Rudra and his wife in vain tried to interrupt him, it was only after overcoming this temptation and again entering on his forest life of meditation that, according to the Digambara belief, he obtained Manahparyaya Jnana. Henceforth Mahavira was houseless, and wandered through the land so lost in meditation as to be indifferent to sorrow and joy, pain and pleasure, subsisting only on the alms of the charitable.

    Research seems to have established the fact that at first he belonged to the order of Parsvanatha, a body of medicants leading a more or less regular life, and that in accordance with their custom he wore clothes; but many Jains will not acknowledge that a Tirthankara could have belonged to an order even for ever so short a time; they agree, however, that for thirteen months he did wear one cloth.

    The question of clothes was a crucial one amongst the Jain. Mahavira apparently felt that the complete ascetic must have completely conquered all his emotions, shame amongst others. A true monk would not feel either heat or cold, and so would not need the protection from the weather offered by clothes, and he would be so indifferent to mere appearance as to be unconscious as to whether he wore raiment or not. Being rid of clothes, one is also rid of a lot of other worries too; one needs no box to keep them in, no materials to mend them with, no change of raiment when the first set is dirty or outworn, and still more important to a Jain, no water is needed in which to wash them.

    The Digambara believe that Mahavira abandoned clothes at the time of his initiation; the Svetambara, as we have seen, that he abandoned them after thirteen months.

    It was whilst Mahavira was walking naked and homeless and as the Digambara believe, keeping absolutely unbroken his vow of silence, that he was joined by Gosala, who followed Mahavira for six years but subsequently left him and fell into those grievous sins which so easily beset a mendicant and to guard against which so many precepts in the jain scriptures are directed.

    For twelve years Mahavira wandered from place to place, never staying for longer than a single night in a village or for more than five nights in a town. The object of this custom may have been to avoid levying too great a tax on the hospitality of the people, and also to prevent the ascetic forming close or undesirable friendships, which might tempt him to break either his vow of nonpossession of goods or of chastity. The rule was however relaxed during the rainy season. When Mahavira, like his subsequent followers made a practice of remaining for four months at the same place, lest he should injure any of the young life that springs so suddenly and abundantly into being, once the monsoon bursts and the rains, on which India's prosperity depends, begin to fall. During these twelve years, he meditated always on himself, on his Atma and walked sinless and circumspect in thought, word and deed.

    ENLIGHTENMENT   AND  NIRVANA

    Mahavira was born with three degrees of knowledge and had acquired the fourth. He was now at the end of his twelve years of wandering and penance, to acquire the fifth degree Kevala Jnana or Omniscience. In the thirteenth year after his renunciation of the world and initiation as an ascetic, Mahavira stayed in a place not very far from the Parasnath hills called Jrimbhakagrama. There was a field there belonging to a farmer called Samaga which surrounded an old temple, and through this field the river Rijupalika flowed. One afternoon Mahavira was seated under the shade of a Sala tree in this quiet meadow in deep meditation. Just as before his initiation, so now he had fasted for two and a half days without water and as he sat there lost in thought, he peacefully attained supreme knowledge. Henceforth he possessed 'complete and full, the unobstructed, unimpeded, infinite and supreme best knowledge and intuition called Kevala Jnana.' His meditations and austerities had been so profound as to destroy the last of all the karma, the enemies to enlightenment, knowledge and freedom, and henceforth his pathway would be unimpeded. Mahavira now added to his titles those of Jina (or Conqueror of the Eight Karma, the great enemies) from which Jainism derives its name, Arhata (or being worthy of Veneration). Arihanta (or destroyer of Enemies) and Aruhanta or (one who has killed even the roots of karma).
    Now, as the conqueror of karma and equipped with supreme .knowledge, Mahavira began to teach his way and his first sermon was on the five great vows.

    Mahavira's great message to mankind was that birth is nothing and caste is nothing, but karma is everything, and on the destruction of karma, future happiness depends. Mahavira laid the greatest stress on asceticism. In its glow, karma could be burnt up and only through austerities could one become a Tirthankara.

    According to the Digambara, the place Mahavira loved most was Rajagriha, the capital of Magadha. Its king Srenika, with his whole army, had gone out to do honour to the saint on his first entry into the country and had been won over by him. The king asked numerous questions concerning the faith and all of them being satisfactorily answered by Mahavira, he entered the Order and became one of the staunchest champions of Jainism.

    The Svetambara have recorded the names of the places where Mahavira stayed during each rainy season, and they cover a period of forty-one years. First, they say he went to Asthikagrama! (the village of bones). The name of this village, the commentators declare, was originally Vardhamana (the Kathiawad Jains .believe it to have been identical with the modern Wadhwan); but an evil demon, Yaksha, collected there an enormous heap of; bones belonging to all the people he had killed, and on this heap the inhabitants built a temple, hence the change of name.

    Mahavira  then spent   three   rainy   seasons   in   Campa  and Pristicampa (Bihar).   As a prophet he cannot  have been without honour in  his   own  country,   for  he  spent twelve   monsoons  a Vaisali   and   Vanijyagrama,   doubtless   recruiting    or his Order, which, having at its head the brother of their king, naturally held out many  attractions to the   inhabitants.    He   was also  able  to win over all the  members of the Order of Parsvanatha to which he had originally belonged.   He paid even more visits to Rajagriha, where,  as the  Svetambara and  Digambara   both agree,  he  was much beloved and  whose inhabitants   prevailed on him to return fourteen times.   Another   favourite resort,   Mithila  has  provide the Jain ascetics with a proverb;    'If Mithila burns,  what have to lose?' and it must have been a place of considerable importance, for Mahavira spent six monsoons there, and its kings, as we know .from other sources, were men of high standing and culture.   The great  ascetic   spent two rainy  seasons in Bhadrika and then just for one  monsoon  he went to  Alabhika to  Punitabhumi,  and to Sravasti in turn, and his last monsoon he spent at Papa (or Pampa).

    About a year after gaining Omniscience Mahavira became a Tirthankara, one of those who show the true way across the troubled ocean of life. The path Mahavira pointed out for others to follow lay in becoming a member of one of the four Tirtha a monk, or nun, if possible, otherwise a devout layman or lay woman.
    We came now to the closing scene of Mahavira's life. He attained Nirvana in his seventy-second year, some fifty years before his rival and contemporary Buddha. Modern research, has shown that the traditional dates for his birth and death, 599 B. C. and 527 B. C. cannot be far wrong.

    Mahavira's last rainy season was spent in Papa, the modern Pavapuri, a small village in the Patna district, which is still held sacred by the Jains. The king of Papa, Hastipala, was a patron of Mahavira. Sitting in the Samparyanka position, he delivered the fifty-five lectures that explain the results of karma and recited the thirty-six unasked questions (i. e. the Uttaradhyayana Sutra) and having finished his great lecture on Marudeva he attained Nirvana all alone, and cut as under the ties of birth, old age and death. legends have gathered as thickly round Mabavira's death as round his birth. One tells how nearly all the ruling chiefs of the country had gathered to hear his discourses, and how the saint preached to them with wonderful eloquence for six days; then on the seventh he took his seat upon a diamond throne in the centre of a magnificient hall, which had been specially built for him on the borders of a lake. His hearers had arranged themselves into twelve grades according to their rank, for all were there from the king to the beggar. It was a dark night but ball was brilliantly illumined by the supernatural glow that issued from the gods who had come to listen to the illustrious preacher. Mahavira preached all night, and towards dawn his hearers fell asleep. The saint knew by his Sukladhyana that his end was drawing nigh so he sat reverently with clasped hands and crossed knees (the:Samparyanka position) and just as the morning dawned, he attained Nirvana, and the people awakened only to find that their Lord was dead.

    Now at last Mahavira  was freed, his  forty-two  years as a monk with all their self-denial and austerities had completely exhausted his karma. He had, unaided, worked out his own salvation, and never again could the accumulated energy of his past actions compel him to be reborn, for all their force was spent The Jains say there are two Terrible Ones who dog the soul, like policemen attending a prisoner; one is called Birth and one Death. 'He who is born must die some day or other, and he who is dead must be born in some form or other'. These two terrible Ones had no longer any power over Mahavira, for the chain of Karma that bound him to them, had been snapped and never again could the prisoner be sentenced to life.
    All of Mahavira's disciples were present at his death.

    Both Digambara and Svetambara Jains love to visit Pavapuri. There are several small temples there belonging to both sects; but the main temple is the one which contains the footprints of Mahavira, and a narrow stone bridge leads to this shrine over a lake on which bloom white and red lotus lilies.

    V. H, Pandit
    Indore City (M. P.)
    सबका मालिक एक - Sabka Malik Ek

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