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4 Post-Mahāvīra Period and the Contribution of Jainism to Indian Culture
MAHAVIRA was the head of the entire Jaina community comprising the four orders, i.e., the monks, the nuns, the laymen and the laywomen.1 He had built-up an excellent cadre of chief disciples or heads of schools known as ganadharas. These ganadharas numbered eleven.2 All of them were brāhmaṇas; two of them belonged to cities, i.e., Rajagṛha and Mithilā, and the rest seem to have come from small settlements in Bihar. Each ganadhara had several junior disciples under him.5 All of them were well-versed in the Jaina canon, i.e., the twelve angas and the fourteen purvas. Nine of these eleven ganadharas died in the life-time of Mahāvīra; the two to survive were Indrabhuti Gautama (Indabhūi Goyama) and Sudharmana (Suhamma). Indrabhūti Gautama died twelve years after the death of Mahāvīra. But Sudharmana lived for twenty years after Mahavira's death. According to one tradition, Indrabhuti Gautama became the head of the Jaina Church
1. LDJC, pp. 24-5; CHAI, III, p. 282; CMHI, II, p. 355.
2. HJM, p. 77; LDJC, p. 25; JAA, I, p. 23.
3.
Ibid., p. 77; JAA, I, pp. 23-4.
JAA, I, pp. 23-4.
HJM, p. 77.
Ibid., p. 78.
Ibid.; CHAI, III, p. 281.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8. Ibid.; Ibid.
9.
HJM, p. 78.
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