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JANUARY, 1984
79
light earthen lamps.” The hardships undergone by Mahavira as a monk, his differences with other schools of Sramana religion and unification of the remnants of the church of Parsva with that of Mahavira have been described at length in some of the older canonical texts. The myth about his life on which contemporary biographies of Mahavira are based must have developed long after his nirvāņa by people who had never seen and known him personally. The Digambara sources on Mahavira's life, Adipurāņa and Uttarapurāņa, were produced in the medieval period and were to a large extent based on myth.
Although we do not have details about the first 30 years of his life at the palace, it is certain that for the greater part of it he lived like a prince. This did not prevent his final exit. As a boy, he wed with a strong and graceful body, was fearless, courageous and intelligent and was by nature serious and grave. He desired to quit the palace at 28 but deferred it by a couple of years at the request of his elder brother. Thereafter he started his career as a monk with the motto 'all sinful acts become unworthy of my indulgence', and this part of his life lasted 12 years during which he visited different parts of the country, including 'non-Aryan' Radha and Singhabhumi and Vajjabhumi in West Bengal and underwent severe hardships. In the 13th year enlightenment came to him. This made him Mahavira or the Great Hero. As an omniscient personality, he lived for 30 years fulfilling his spiritual mission and inspiring and setting people on the road to liberation. If we are to believe in the account of the Kalpa Sutra, the Church of Mahavira included within its fold several thousand persons outstanding in one field or the other. At the age of 72, Mahavira passed away in perfect health and while delivering his last sermon, at Madhyama Pava, which it is widely believed to be near Nalanda
Metaphysics
Metaphysics for which another name is ontology, is devoted to the consideration of real or reals. It has been the unanimous finding of all religions that God is the only real, God transcendental more than God immanent so that everything else is unreal, a mere illusion or falsehood, or a mere manifestation of the will of the real. The Jainas have not viewed reality in this manner. To them, whatever exists is real or reality in existence. This makes the universe as well as life real, because they are eternal, ever-existent and never to end, though they assume and pass through innumerable modes and categories. This subtle doctrine has been expressed by Mahavira in three words : utpāda-dhrauvya-vyaya or genesis-permanence-destruction. This is as much true of the universe of animate
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