Jainism

Author(s): Vallabh Smarak Nidhi
Publisher: Vallabh Smarak Nidhi

Page 20

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and queen of Kundalpur in the kingdom of Vaisali.
The luxuries of royalty made no appeal to him. His mind was steeped in thought about the greatest problems of life, namely, the suff erings of mankind and how to overcome them The solution could never be found in the enta. nglements of the palace and the kingdom. He therefore renounced the world at the age of 30 and devoted himself to the practice of austerities, cultivating that discipline of the body and the mind which is absolutely necessary for the right understanding of life and nature.
This he did for a period of twelve years at the end of which Supreme Wisdom dawned on him. He found out the cause of misery and the way to remove it. The essence of his philosophy is already set forth above. This he preached for the remaining thirty years of his life winning a large number of adherents to his creed. He attainded Nirvana at pavapuri (Bihar) at the age of 72 leaving behind a strongly organized community which has continued to flourish, with varying fortunes, throughout Bharatavarsha during the course of the last twenty-five centuries.