Jainism in North India

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

Page 62

MAHAVIRA AND HIS TIMES “His wanderings seem to have covered a wide area, and on occasions he visited Rājagpha, the capital of Magadha, and other towns, where the utmost honour was shown to him,"i Furthermore, looking to the schisms in the Jaina church in his own day, the number of Mahāvīra's followers, as believed by the Jainas, does in no way discredit him. He had an excellent community of 14,000 Sramaņas, 36,000 nuns, 159,000 male lay-votaries, 318,000 female lay-rotaries, and something like 5400 others who either knew the fourteen Pîrvas or were Kcvalins, and so on.
Thus having become a Kevalin at the age of forty-two at Jrmbhikagrāma.; situated on the River Rijupālıkā, near the Pārasnāth hills, and having wandered for about thirty years as a reformer in the Jaina church, Lord Mahāvīra died at the age of seventy-two 4 in the house of King Hastipāla's scribe in Pāvāpuri, near Rājagrha, a place still visited by thousands of Jaina pilgrims. According to tlie traditional Jaina clironology this event is believed to have taken place in the year 527 B.C., differing by sixteen years from the Nirvana of Buddha according to the chronology of Ceylon, or 543 B.C. This date of Mahāvīra is based on three verses repeated in many commentaries and chronological works. “These verses, which are quoted in a large number of commentaries and chronological works, but the origin of which is by no means clear, give the adjustment between the eras of Vīra and Vikrama, and form the basis of the earlier Jaina chronology." 8 Merutunga's 9
Charpentier, op and loc at "The extent of his sphere of influence almost corresponds with that of the kingdom of Srivasti or Kosala, Videha, Magadha, and Angathe modern Oudh, and the provinces of Tirhut and Bihar in western Bengal"--Bubler, op al, p. 27.
Jacobi, op al, pp. 267-208. Also called Jrbhakaprūma or Jrmbhui Stevenson (Afrs), op at , p 38
""Alahāvīra lived thirty years as a householder, more than twelve years in a state Interior to perfection, somcthing less than thirty years as a Kevalın, forty-two years as & monk-scienty-two years on the whole " Jacobi, op cit, p 209.
rupa-Pavāpuri, about seven miles to the south-east of Bihar (town) and two miles O Ol Giryek According to Stevenson's Kalpa-Sutra, Mahāvīrs died here while he
uding the Paryushana (Parusang) at the palace of Hastipāla, king of Papa There are four beautiful Jaina temples in an e
Annual autilul Jaina temples in an enclosure which marks the site of his death COL Div ali nas started to commemorate Mahāvīra's death of Dey, opp 190 "Cf Jacobi, Kalpa-Sletra, Int ,p 8
None of the sources in which these announcements appear is older than the cucury AD The latest is found in Bemacandra, who died in the year 1172 A D
twelfth century AD The la -Bühler, op cit, p. 28.
• Bühler, IA,1,P 308
* Merutunga, a fam the Prabhandhacintamani and about 14, xm, p. 119
utunga, a famous Jaina author. composed in 8 1861-1804 AD his work vandhacintamani and about two years later his Vucārasrenz ." Charpentier,
27