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rine is traced to the teaching Mahavira, as a boy, is of Jesus :-“Resist not evil !” sent to school : they find le Yet over five centuries bc- does not need school-masters. fore Jesus,--the teaching of He has in his heart a wisdom Ahimsa was taught and practi- which no schools may give. sed by two Indian sages and Like the Buddha, he is Rishis, Gautama Buddha and smitten with a longing to Mahavira. The Jains worship renounce the world. He lives Mahavira as Bhagawan, he up to the age of twentyLord, the Blessed One. eight with his family. Then
his father and mother pass What little I have learnt
away. He feels he must now of Mahavira has impresssed
enter the stream of Sanyasa me much. His was a life of
(renunciation.) He goes to singular grace and singular
his elder brother for permibeauty. A contemporary of
ssion to renounce. “The the Buddha, he reminds onc,
wounds are yet fresh," says again and again, of the
his brother to him; "wait !" Buddha's renunciation, the Buddha's Tapas, he Buddha's
He waits for two years love of humanity.
more. He is now thirty. Like
Jesus, he feels he must renoMahavira was born about unce all and enter upon a 599 B.C. in a town in Bihar, ministry of service. Like the near Patná. His father was Buddha, he distributes his a Chief, a Kshatrya named wealth among the poor. On Siddhartha. His mother, the day he leaves his family, queen Trishala of Priya- he gives over his kingdom karini, was a daughter of to his brother, then he Chetaka, the head of the passes into a life of penance Republic of the Vajjis. and prayer. To the Buddha
