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MAHĀVĪRA : HIS LIFE AND TEACHINGS
long, long after the age in which Mahāvīra or his immediate disciples and followers had lived.
Thus the Angas are the main set of texts upon which we should rely in giving an account and estimate of Mahāvīra's teachings, and the Pāli Nikāyas are of help to us only in so far as they corroborate the Jaina evidence
We have seen that the Pāli Nikāyas bring before us a great personality, who was known to his contemporaries as Nirgrantha Jñātrputra Around this personality there gathered a large number of men and women, from all families or social grades His disciples and followers sincerely believed that their master was a great Sramaņa, a great Brāhmaṇa, a great Tirthankara, a great Guru, a great Master, who, whether walking or sitting still, was gifted with a supreme knowledge and vision of the summum bonum. It is this earnest belief or deep conviction about the greatness of the Teacher that had induced them to repose their trust in him and in his words. To them he stood as a living example of highest human virtue and perfection His life was to them a perennial source of light and inspiration His sufferings and forbearance kept them steady in all their trials and tribulations And his teachings or instructions were to them not ordinary words but
