Jainism in North India

Author(s): Chimanlal J Shah
Publisher: Longmans Green and Compny London

Page 57

JAINISM IN NORTH INDIA Kundagrāma village, and his mother, Princess Trišalā, was the sister of the chieftain of Vaiśālī, the capital of Videha, and was related also to Bimbisāra, king of Magadha.? In Nandıvardhana and Sudarśanā he had his eldest brother and sister respectively. Mabāvira was married to one Yaśodā, who belonged to the Koundinya Gotra, and he had by her a daughter named Anojjā, also called Priyadarśanā.3 She was married to his nephew Rajaputra Jamalı, "a future disciple of his father-in-law and the propagator of the first schism in the Jaina church." 4 Mabāvīra lived a householder's life till he was thirty years old, but just after the decease of his parents he left his home with the permission of his elder brother and entered the spiritual career, “which in India, just as the Church in the Western country, seems to have offered a field for ambitious younger sons, 6
According to the Jaina belief Mahāvira's parents were worshippers of Pārsva and followers of the Sramanas.? "Mahāvīra's doctrines are spoken of in the Sūtras not as his doctrines but decreta, or old-established truths-Pannattas. All this would be next to impossible if he had been like Buddha, the original founder of his religion; but it is just what one would expect to be the record of a reformer's life and preaching." 8 He is said to have been praised and hymned by both gods and men in the following sweet words "Obtain the pre-eminent highest rank (1.e. final liberation) on that straight road which the Jinas have taught."9
1 "Just outside Vggali lay the suburb Kundagrāma-probably surviving in the modern village of Basukund -and here lived a wealthy nobleman, Siddhartha, head of & certain warrior-clan called the Jñatrikas "--CHI, 1, p 157
ICS Frazer, op cit, pp 128-131 According to the Jamna Sütras Trisalū was called Vidchadatta and Prayakūrini, and that is why Dahăvīra was called “Vidchadatta's son" Cf Jacobi, opal, Pp 103, 104, 256
राजा समरवीरोग्य यशोदा कन्यको निजाम् । प्रदान वर्धमानाय . भयशोदायामजायत । afem fugit 11—Hemacandra, Trishashtu-Salähd, Parva X, vv 125, 154, p 10
Charpentier, CUI 1,2, p 158 tagant ships: forcestama 1-Hemacandra, op at, 163, P 17
HAUTE PETIT me STGE DE . facefa fwaartetc --Kalpa-Stitra, Subodhila-hila, pp 80,00
• Radhakrishnan, op cit, p 287 THERE wife werf etc - Acāränga, pt 11, sül 178, p 422 c. Jacoli, on el, p 10: "His parents had, according to a tradition which scems trusttrorthy, been followers of Parsva, the previous Tirthankan; as has already been pointed out, the doctrine of Maliūsim was scarcels anything else than a modibed or renovated form of Panva's creed "-Charpentier, op cit, P 160
Jacobi, 1.4,1,P 161 • Jacobi, S.B.C, , 258 "He had proclaimed the highest law of the Jinas - Iord , xl., p. 288 21