Jaina Gazette 1928

SR No.: 034890
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Ajitprasad, C S Mallinath
Publisher: Jaina Gazettee Office
Publication Year: 1928
Total Pages: 502
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 33 MB

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THE JAINA GAZETTE the light of intelligence is gone, let us make an illumilialia.; : { material matter." *
While Indrabhuti Gautama was returning from his mission, he learnt on his way that the master was dead. His grief knew no bounds. He, however, checked his passion and became a 'perfected saint. He survived his master twelve years and died at Rajgriba at an advanced age of ninety-two, having lived forty-two years as a monk Out of the eleven chief disciples of Lord Mahavira, only two, namely, Gautama and Sudharman, outlived him; the rest died during his life-time. Why Sudharman and not Gautama (the eldest disciple) succeeded the Lord is a problem. The supposition of Colebrooke, Stevenson and Cunningham which made Indrabhuti Gautama a rebel disciple of Lord Mahavira and confounded him with Gautama Sakya Muni the reputed founder of Buddhism, is no longer tenable. The Jaina theologians account for this fact in this way. They say that whatever knowledge a Kevalin (a perfected saint) imparts to his disciples, he calls it as the result of his own thinking and not as something heard from the teacher. For this reason Sudharman who was not a perfected saint at the time of Mahavira's demise, succeeded to the headship of the church.
The nirvana or demise of Lord Mahavira was immediately followed by a split in the church caused by Tisya Gupta, The reference to this schism is made by an unfriendly Buddhist writer in an old book of the Singalese canon, the Samagama sutta. “ Thus I heard it," says he "once the Venerable one lived in Samagama in the land of the Sakyas. At that time, however certainly the Nigantha Nataputta (Lord Mahavira) had died in Pava. After His death the Niganthas wandered about disunited, separate, quarrelling, fighting, wounding each other with words." Here we have complete confirmation of the statement of the Jaina canon as to the place where Vardhamana entered Nirvana, as well as of the statement that a schism occurred immediately after His death (Buhler). Mahavira must have been a great man in his way and an eminent leader among
S. B. E. Vol. 22.-Kalpa Sutra.