Lord Mahavira and His Times

SR No.: 011080
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Kailashchandra Jain
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas
Publication Year: 1974
Total Pages: 427
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

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Lord Mahavira and His Times
those intermediaries. While they are said to have halted at Nālandā, Vaiśāli and Rajagriha at one and the same time, they are not known to have seen each other.1 Mahavira was senior in age to Buddha, the former predeceasing the latter by a few years.
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That Mahāvīra and the Buddha were contemporaneous is proved by the synchronization of certain historical facts. When they had started their career as religious teachers and reformers, Śreņika Bimbisāra and Ajātaśatru were powerful kings of Magadha; Anga was annexed to the kingdom of Magadha, and the Vṛijji-Lichchhavis of Vaiśālī and the Mallas of Kuśināra and Pāvā formed two powerful confederacies. Prasenjit was the monarch of Kośala, and Kāśī was annexed to the kingdom of Kośala.
It is not without reason that Mahāvīra has been represented in the Abhayarājakumāra Sutta as personally interested in the welfare of Devadatta who fomented a schism within the Buddhist Order of the time. B.M. BARUA suggests that Devadatta was a man with Jaina leaning. It is probably under the influence of Mahavira's teaching that Devadatta insisted on having the five special rules introduced in the Buddhist Order.
SCHISMS
Even in the life-time of Mahavira, there arose schimatic tendencies in the Jaina Church. In the fourteenth year of Mahāvira's becoming a prophet, his nephew and son-in-law, Jamali, headed an opposition against him. Similarly, two years later, a holy man in the Jaina community, Tisagutta, made an attack on certain points in Mahāvīra's doctrine. Both of these schisms were, however, concerned with mere trifles, and seem to have caused no great trouble, as they were speedily stopped by the authority of the prophet himself. Jamali, however, persisted in his heretical opinions until his death. The Digambaras seem to be ignorant of the earlier schisms.
NIRVĀŅA
Mahavira attained Nirvana at the age of 72 at Pāvā. It
1 NATA. p. 402. 2. Majjh, I, pp 392-393. 3. LMLT p. 17.