Lord Mahavira

SR No.: 034936
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Boolchand
Publisher: Jain Cultural Research Society
Publication Year: 1948
Total Pages: 124
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 12 MB

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republics, including the Videhas, the Jôātņkas,a the Lichchavis and the Vajjis, were constituent units. The real strength of the republic in Mahavira's time as, to a large extent, today lay not so much in its goverment as in the character of its people. The Buddha mentioned in one of his discourses that republican population was free from luxury and sloth, 'sleeping on logs of wood as pillows and not on cushions of the finest. cotton, active in archery, and not delicate, tender and soft in their arms and legs.' The youths were rowdy, but by no means devoid of honour or lacking in moral courage ; they frankly admitted their mistakes, and were inspired by a fundamental sense of respect for elders and women, and their national institutions. It was in this atmosphere that Mahavira's early life was spent. His upbringing must have been quite exceptionally balanced and his development proportionate, for his life was a life of comfort but not luxury, and his ambition was an ambition to conquer but not with a view to mastery over others. He was deeply inAuenced by the democratic ethos of the society in which he lived. He was impressed by the inadequate application of this ethos in the political, economic and social life of the community without its being based upon a really democratic religious system ; and he took it upon himself to work out and propagate a system of complete spiritual democracy in the form of Jainism.