________________
carr
2009
The king came with his family to pay homage. I housands of people attended Prabhu's sermon. Bhagavan gave his first sermon on the concept of religion. He showed the four dimensional path of spiritual uplift in the form of abandoning violence, abandoning falsity, abandoning stealth and abandoning possessions.
Bhagavan laid special emphasis on the 12 vows, 60 transgressions and 15 charitable activities while elaborating in detail the concept of religion.
After listening to Bhagavan's sermon hundreds of people including king Ashvasen, Vamadevi and Prabhavati got initiated. Hundreds of laymen took householder's vows. Many scholars including the renowned Vedic scholar Shubhadatt and many princes too got initiated after getting enlightened by Prabhu's sermon. Bhagavan established the four pronged religious ford in the form of Shravak-shravika (laymen and women) and Sadhu-sadhvi (male and female ascetics). Shubhadatt (Shubhadinna) became the first Ganadhar (chief disciple). In the religious order of Bhagavan Parshva Naath there were eight Ganadhars.
In Avashyak Sutra there is a mention of ten Ganas and ten Ganadhars. As two of these were short lived, Sthananga Sutra mentions only eight with an explanatory foot note. The names of the eight Ganadhars are-Shubha, www.jainelibrary.org yaghosh, Vashisht, Brahmachari, Som, Shridhar, Virabhadra and Yashasvi. Virabhadra
