Comprehensive History Of Jainism

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

Page 49

LIFE OF MAHĀVĪRA
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of places are described as having been visited by Mahāvīra,54 but it is extremely doubtful whether all of them were ever visited by the Jaina prophet. Reading between the lines of the relevant passage of the original canon would convince a discerning reader that he only toured in Bihar and Bengal in his twelve-year pre-enlightenment period.
Both the works, the Ācārānga35 and the Kalpasūtra, 56 have described in identical words the story of his final enlightenment. We are told that in the thirteenth year, in the month of Vaišākha, when the moon was in conjunction with Uttaraphālgunī, Mahāvīra attained nirvāṇa (enlightenment) outside the town of Jambhiyagāma. The exact place where this occurred was the bank of the river Rjupālikā, near the residence of a householder called Sāmāga and an old temple (ceiya).
Next comes the most important period of Mahāvīra's life, namely that as a teacher and path-finder. We are extremely fortunate to have a passage, included in the Kalpasūtra, which gives us a very good idea about his forty-two-year ascetic life, including his twelveyear pre-nirvana period. The passage runs thus:
... the venerable ascetic stayed the first rainy season at Ashikagrāma, three rainy seasons in Campā and Prsthicampă, 12 in Vaiśāli and Vānijyagrāma, 14 in Rājagļha and its suburb called Nālandā, 6 in Mithila, 2 at Bhadrikā, 1 in Alabhika, 1 in Panitabhūmi, 1 in Srāvasti, and 1 at
the town of Pāpā in king Hastipāla's office of writers (rajjusabhā).57 We have already observed that in his twelve-year career as a learner Mahāvīra probably visited only a few places in Bihar and B The passage, quoted above, does not probably give any chron cal sequence of Mahāvīra's wanderings as a learner and teacher. We must remember that it was probably composed 200 years after Mahāvira's demise, and it was, therefore, virtually impossible for the writer of the Kalpasūtra to give a complete chronological account of Mahāvira's entire career as an ascetic. There is however no doubt that the passage gives us a broad and general idea about his wanderings from the age of 30, up to his death at the age of 72.
A closer analysis of the above-quoted passage of the Kalpasūtra would show that barring a year in Srāvastī, and a year probably in western Bengal, Mahāvīra spent his life only in what is now known as the state of Bihar. He, however, occasionally visited other places in India, as is evident from the combined testimony of the passages scattered in the original canon. We have also to consider, in this