Jaina Monuments Of Orissa

Author(s): R P Mohapatra
Publisher: D K Publications

Page 27

Background and Tradition
In his resting places, crawling or flying animals attacked him. Bad people, the guard of the village, or lance bearers attacked him. Well controlled, he bore all dreadful calamities and different kinds of feelings and he wandered about, speaking but little. Illtreated he engaged himself in his meditations free from resentment. He endured all hardships in calmness well-guarded, he bore the pains caused by grass, cold, heat, flies and gnats.
He travelled in the pathless country of Rādhas where he used miserable beds and seats. The rude natives of the place attacked him and set dogs to bite him. But he never used the stick to keep off the dogs. He endured the abusive language of the rustics being perfectly enlightened. The inhabitants of the place caused him all sorts of torture and disturbed him in his religious postures.
the flesdical tren the he
He abstained from indulgence of the flesh though never attacked by diseases. Whether wounded or not he did not desire medical treatment. In the cold season he meditated in the shade. In summer he exposed himself to the heat. He lived on rough food.
He meditated persevering in some posture, without the smallest motion. He meditated in mental concentration on the things above, below, beside. He meditated free from sin and desire, not attached to sounds and colours, and never acted carelessly.
Thus, as hero at the head of a battle, he bore all hardships and remaining undisturbed proceeded on the road to deliverence. Understanding the truth and restraining the impulses for the purification of the soul, he finally liberated.?
Mahāvīra renounced the world at the age of thirty. Twelve years thus spent in self penance and meditation were not fruitless. During the thirteenth year in the second month of summer in the fourth fortnight, the light fortnight of the month of Vaisakha, on its tenth day, out side the town of Jşmbhikagrāma on the bank of river Rjupāli, not far from an old shrine, in the field of the householder Syāmaka under a sala tree and the asterism Uttarāphalguni he reached the highest knowledge and intuition, called Kevala which is infinite, supreme, unobstructed, unimpeded, cornplete and full. He was then lest in deep meditation in a squatting position with joined heels, exposing himself to the heat of sun after fasting two days and a half even without drinking water.8
There after he was recognised as omniscient, as a Kevalin comprehending all subjects and as an Arhat for whom there is no secret in this world to learn. By this time he was already forty-two ard the remaining thirty years of his life he passed in teaching his religious system, organising his order of ascetics and wandering about preaching his doctrines, and making converts. He apparently visited all the great towns of
6. B.C. Law, Mahāvira : His Life and Teachings, p. 23 7. B.C. Law, Ibid, p. 24. 8. Ibid, p. 30.