History of Jaina Monachism

SR No.: 001727
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: S B Deo
Publisher: Deccan College Research Institute
Publication Year: 1956
Total Pages: 616
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Principle, & History
File Size: 12 MB

Page 80

HISTORY OF JAINA MONACHISM
75
Once, while they were touring together, Gosāla happened to see a sesamum plant, and he asked Mahāvīra whether the plant would thrive or die. Mahāvīra replied that the plant would perish, and it happened likewise. Further on, Gosāla teased a certain ascetic called Vesiyāyaṇa who tried to burn him with tejoleśyā, but Mahāvīra saved Gosäla from it.
While on the way back, Gosāla created a difference of opinion regarding the sesamum plant, and he severed his connections with his teacher. Then acquiring the tejoleśyā by the way as laid down by Mahāvira previously to him, Gosāla proclaimed himself as the head of the Ājivikas, and told the people that he was the Jina.
Making Sävatthi as the chief centre of his activities, Gosala once came to stay in the house of his laywoman follower. Mahāvira also happened to be at Sāvatthi where he denounced the claim of Gosāla to be the Jina. Gosāla, learning this, got wild and tried in vain to burn Mahāvīra with the tejolesyā. This led to further debates and the hitting by magical powers by Gosāla. Mahāvīra declared that Gosāla would die within a week due to the recoil of the magical power on him. Due to that Gosāla, falling ill, gave himself up to drinking and incontinency. Then, when his end was near, he called his followers and told them that Mahāvīra was really great and that he had harassed him out of revenge.123
Gosāla advocated the theory of niyativāda or fatalism, and started the practice of nudity and austerities in his sect also.124
One thing is clear from the above account, and that is the existence of close relationship between Mahāvīra and Gosāla and the former's earlier career as a teacher. The efforts of the Jaina texts in often refuting the doctrines of the Ājivikas but not even mentioning their far greater contemporary, Buddha, go to imply the close contact between the leader of the Jainas and that of the Ājivikas. But this close relationship had a limit. For, as GHATGE remarks, "Though it will be going too far to regard Mahāvira as a pupil of Gosāla, and assume many points in the Jaina creed as borrowed from the Ajivika sect, it is quite probable that the rules about diet current among the Jaina monks may have come from the code of the Ājivikas, and some significance must be attached to the coincidence of Mahāvira giving up his garment in the year of his meeting with Gosäla".125
123. Bhag. pp. 659a-696a; Uväsaga: HOERNLE's App. 124. Ibid. 6, p. 44; Bhag. pp. 369bff; Thān. p. 233b; Aup. sū. 41. 125. op. cit., p. 414.