________________ RE .. [ Hafhentrning the faith, and, all of them being satisfactorily answered, became one of the strongest champions of the religion of the Jina, We now come to the closing scene of Mahavira's life. His last rainy season was spent in Papathe modern Pavapuri-a small town in the , Patna district, still held sacred by the Jainas. Hastipala, the ruler of the place, was a great patron of Mahavira, and, according to the Kalpa-Sutra, it was in the office of his scribe that the venerable ascetic died. He attained Nirvana, cut asunder the ties of birth, old age and death, became a Siddha, a Mukta, freed from all misery, Freed from all pains. This is said to have occurred in 527 B, C., some 605 years before the commencement of the Shaka era, and 470 years before King Vikramaditya. Mahavira's system of teaching, as it has come down to us, is full of metaphysics and philosophy; but apart from these, its main purpose, summed up in a few words, is to free the soul from its mundane fetters by means of the three jewels : Samyak Jnana, Samyak Darshana, Samyak Charitra-Right Knowledge, Right Faith, Right Conduct. His great message to mankind is that birth is nothing, caste is nothing, but Karma is everything, and on the destruction of this Karma depends final emancipation,
