Jain Journal 1993 04

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 41

200
ignorance. He dedicated his life to the cause of mankind, consecrated the most extraordinary energies ever conferred upon a man, beaconed the path of human knowledge and created a new horizon in the domain of Religion and Philosophy. He is great and divine, not because he dedicated his life to the right cause of humanity, not because he had a high feeling of honour for all sorts of living beings, not because he respected the rights of conscience, but because he found the eternal truth of peace and happiness for mankind, but because all his utterances, full of wisdom, have the "trumpet of a prophecy", but because he nobly advocated equality of privileges and the universal brotherhood of man. That is why, even after the lapse of 2500 years of ever-new expansion of human ideas, we feel to remember him, to analyse his ideas and principles, to vivisect his doctrines and to resuscitate his thoughts from the pages of forgotten history.
I
Lord Vardhamana Mahavira2, a contemporary of Gautama Buddha and a new interpreter of human life, was born in 599 B.C. at the site of the modern village of Basarh about 27 miles north of Patna. His father Siddhartha was a ruling Kṣatriya ('a warrior class') in the republic of Vaiśāli in Bihār. He was born at a time when Magadha, an area in Eastern India, was, perhaps, both politically and spiritually in the height of its power. Vardhamana seems to have lived with his parents till they died. At the age of 30 Vardhamana, with the consent of his brother Nandivardhana, entered the spiritual career. For twelve years he led a very austere life and visited many places in Radha, a country adjacent to his birth place. Vardhamana (lit. 'the prosperous one') attained kevala-ship (lit. 'one who is recognized as omniscient') at the end of the twelve and a half years. Then he virtually got the titles Mahavira ('the great victorious'), Jina ('the conqueror'), Tirthankara ('the one who has crossed the ocean of this world'). After attaining this omniscient knowledge, he started preaching and teaching his doctrines for the last 30 years of his life. During this time he organized his order of ascetics and gave it a proper shape. At the age of 72 in 527 B.C. he attained nirvāņa ('salvation').
JAIN JOURNAL
The basic tenets of Jainism are found in the epithets by which Mahavira is often described. He is called Jina (<ji, to conquer +
2 J. L. Jain, Outlines of Jainism, p. xxvii-viii.
3 See A. Chakravarti, Samayasara, pp. 80ff.