Comprehensive History Of Jainism

Author(s): Aseem Kumar Chatterjee
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt Ltd

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A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF JAINISM
prosperous family of Kşatriya Kundagrāma near Vaiśālī.
The next important event in Mahāvīra's life was his renunciation that took place on his attaining the age of thirty. 10 Siddhārtha and Trisalā were no longer then in the land of the living. His elder brother Nandivardhana" and sister Sudarsanā^2 were there, but they apparently did not attempt to prevent Mahāvīra from embracing an entirely new life. It is probable that before his eventual departure, Mahāvīra gave his daughter in marriage to a person of the Kausika gotra.
At the age of thirty, on the tenth day of the month of Mārgasīrșa, when the moon was once more in conjunction with Uttaraphālguni, after taking the permission of the elders, 43 Mahāvīra left for the park of Ņāyasamda, 94 which was situated near his home town. There, under an aśoka tree,45 he divested himself of all his ornaments and finery, and then plucked out his hair in five handfuls. 26 The Kalpasūtra? then informs us that Mahāvīra retained his cloth covering for thirteen months, and thereafter wandered about naked.
The original canon gives us some idea about Mahāvīra's wanderings in his twelve-year pre-kevalajñāna period. The Acārānga mentions a few places he visited after his departure from home, 18 and the Bhagavatī, which is also an original canonical text, gives us some important information about this period of Mahāvīra's life, and this is to be found in the fifteenth Sataka of this work.
According to this account, in the second year of his wanderings, Mahāvīra came into contact with Mankhaliputta Gośāla at Nālandā, a famous suburb of Rājagrha.49 The author of this portion of the Bhagavatī would have us believe that Gośāla became Mahāvīra's disciple and wandered with him to a number of places for six years. In this connection the Bhagavati mentions three, Kollāga sanniveśa (a small town near Nālandā), Siddhārthagrāma, and Kūrmagrāma. All these were in all probability situated near Rājagļha. In the later texts they are represented as visiting a number of places together. 50
A few of the places visited by Mahāvīra during his wanderings are mentioned in the Acārānga. We are told that besides Kummāragāma,'' a place he visited in the very beginning of his wanderings, he travelled in the country of the Lādhas, 52 and also went to Vajjabhumi and Subbabhūmi. According to the commentaries ** Vajjabhūmi and Subbabhumi were divisions of Lādha identifiable with West Bengal.
In the commentaries like the niryuklis and cūrnis a large number