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4
MAHĀVĪRA: HIS LIFE AND TEACHINGS
are several Suttas in which Nigantha Nātaputta is associated with five other Tirthankaras who passed as notable personalities and leaders of thought · Some of the Suttas introduce to their reader some of the immediate disciples and contemporary lay followers of the Jaina Tirthankara 2 There is a Sutta which vividly paints the character of the Nirgranthas as strong advocates of vegetarian diet. There are Suttas that furnish a catalogue of the punctilious ways of certain naked ascetics of the time, the ways which might be shown to be precisely those observed by the Jinakalpikas among the Nirgranthas The same set of texts introduces to us the kings and clans and classes of people who directly or indirectly supported the Nirgrantha movement in Northern India in the Tīrthankara's lifetime. These very texts precisely name the countries and places important in the early history of Jainism The same authorities help us to form a fairly accurate idea of the distances between those countries and places, and of the roads or routes by which they might be reached
i Sāmaññaphala Sutta, Digha, I, pp 47 foll 2 Vinaya Texts, S BE, Vol XVII, PP 108 foll. 8 Cf Siha's account, abrd , Vol XVII, pp 108 foll. 4 Kassapasihanāda Sutta, Digha, I, pp. 161 foli.
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