Heart of Jainism

Author(s): Mrs Sinclair Stevenson
Publisher: Mrs Sinclair Stevenson

Page 59

THE LIFE OF MAHAVIRA
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and Avadhi jñāna. He now gained the fourth kind of knowledge, Manaḥparyaya jñana, by which he knew the thoughts of all sentient beings of five senses in the twoand-a-half continents, and it only remained for him to obtain the fifth degree of knowledge, that of Kevala jñāna or Omniscience, which is possessed by the Kevali alone.
The Digambara, however, do not believe that Mahāvīra obtained the fourth kind of knowledge till some time after his initiation. According to them, he failed to gain it, though he performed meditation for six months, sitting absolutely motionless. At the end of the six months he went to Kulapura; the king of Kulapura, Kulädhipa, came and did him honour, washed his feet with his own hands and, having walked round him three times, offered him rice and milk; these Mahāvīra accepted and took them as his first meal (pāraṇum) after a fast of six months. He returned to the forest and wandered about in it performing twelve kinds of penance, but still the knowledge was withheld from him. At last he visited Ujjayini (Ujjain) and did penance in a cemetery there, when Rudra and his wife in vain tried to interrupt him; it was only after overcoming this temptation and again entering on his forest life of meditation that, according to the Digambara belief, he obtained Manaḥparyāya jñāna. Henceforth Mahāvīra was houseless, and wandered through the land so lost in meditation as to be indifferent to sorrow and joy, pain and pleasure, subsisting only on the alms of the charitable.
Research seems to have established the fact that at first he belonged to the order of Pārsvanatha mentioned above, a body of mendicants leading a more or less regular life, and that in accordance with their custom he wore clothes; but many Jaina will not acknowledge that a Tirthankara could have belonged to an order even for ever so short a time; they agree, however, that for thirteen months he did wear one cloth.
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