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Bhagwan Buddha
119
The Law of Karman liberates one from the cluches of despotic God. The subsequent writers of the biographies of Mahāvira have based them on this new pattern the essence of which is this Law of Karman as enunciated by Mahavira.
And now as the sect has become firmly formed, every opportunity, proper or improper is availed of when gods are depicted as serving Mahāvira who was now an acknowledged leader of a well-formed sect. The object underlying this is to show to the people to focus their attention on Mahavira's main message of spiritualism comprised of renunciation of desires and on the fact that the gods whom people worship to get the material prosperity are serving Mahāvjra who is spreading the message of spiritualism amongst people, thereby showing that spiritual power is much more valuable than the material power consisting of estates, wealth etc. Therefore, Mahavira who is worshipped by gods even, should be worshipped, if at all one wants to do so.
The biographical literature concerning Buddha and belonging to the second stage consists of the stories of his births. This means in other words, that the stories of Buddha's previous births were linked up with those of Buddha's times which eulogized the effect and efficacy of the good deeds of people, the stories having been fittingly employed. The purpose of these stories is to illustrate how Buddha developed, before becoming Buddha, the Enlightened, the virtues of charities, compassion, love, forgiveness, tolerance, and genius etc. etc. as also to show how Buddha ultimately got Enlightenment. In these stories supernatural element of gods is introduced with the same objects and aims just as in the stories of Mahāvira.
Considering from other point of view, the biographical stories of Mahavira and Buddha falling in the period of the second stage are in a way supplementary to each other. Though the inviolability of the Law of Karman figures in the stories of both, it has been projected in bold relief in the biographical stories of Mahāvīra, while a special treatment is given in the stories of Buddha as to how to cultivate those virtues which are useful in the spiritual development. The fact that a being becomes a Tirthankara or a Buddha ultimately, having passed gradually through various grades of development is a common feature in both of them. They are not so from time immemorial.
In the third stage, the biographies of Mahāvira started to be written in Sanskrit in stead of in Prakrit as before. The account of his life in these biographies clearly bears the stamp of the poetic imagination employed by the writers of Sanskrit in their compositions. This difference
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