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north-eastern parts of India because of extreme and prolonged famine conditions. The South of India still remains unexplored on this aspect of who may have been responsible for spreading Jainism in the South during the centuries previous to this great event when Lord Mahavira had not even visited the area. There are still the ruins of Jaina Temples of unascertainable antiquity and the Shashtrabhandars locked up which have not been looked into so far.
Coming to Lord Mahavira, and Lord Buddha, Mahavira's father whose name was Siddhartha and Buddha's father incidentally
Siddhartha' was also Lord Bubdha's name before he attained his enlightenment) were chiefs of small areas of land around Kundinagram and Kapilavastu respectively where Mahavira and Buddha were born. The former belonged to the warrior race of Ikshwaku and the latter to a warrior tribe known as Sakya. None of them was a king having a kingdom but by all standards prevailing then, they were certainly a little more than ordinary. If at all, it was only Mahavira's mother Trishala who was the daughter of the king of Vaishali, one of the more known big five states in North India at the time, the other four being Magadha, Koshala, Vatsa and Avanti. Mahavira dying in 527 B.C., lived 72 years of which after his initiation at 30 as a Jaina monk, 12 were spent in meditation, silence and fasting (he was convinced of the necessity of such austerities, he even persevered in them after he attained enlightenment) and the remaining 30 years were spent as a full-time all-knowing Teacher and Adept Saint Master. Lord Buddha, dying in 483 B.C., 44 years after Mahavira, lived 80 years of which 6 after he left the comforts of his home at the age of, some say 19, some say 25, were spent in austerities (which later, he considered 'wasted time, useless for attaining his end') and the remaining 50 or more were spent as an all-knowing full-time Teacher. Mahavira delivered his first sermon at the age of 42 on Mount Vipula near Rajgrahi, the capital of Magadha State to the public at large, while Lord Buddha delivered his first ser mon to his disciples at Sarnath, the present holiest place for Buddhists of the entire world in
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