Lord Mahavira

Author(s): Bool Chand
Publisher: Jain Cultural Research Society

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· valour. Being the scion of a Kshattriya chieftain and · brought up in the free atmosphere of a republican so
ciety, he must have right from his childhood taken the most vigorous interest in outdoor games and martial exercises. He was naturally intelligent and possessed of a very keen intellect. The kalpa-Sutra mentions that from his very birth he possessed 'supreme, unlimired and unimpeded knowledge and intuition and that he had the aspirations of a man of knowledge. That his education was carefully ooked after may be safely. presumed : the Jain scriptures speak again and again of princes who were trained in "the seventy-two arts,” the list including dancing, music, gambling, rules of society, fighting, archery, knowledge of birds, animals and trees, etc. besides purely literary and philosophical attainments.
The Svetambara books say that Mahavira had an elder brother, whose name was Nandivardhana, with whom he lived in his boyhood. This fact is omitted, but not positively denied, by Digambara books. Both books, however, agree that: Mahavira was very wellconnected. By birth he was a member of at least the ruling class in a republican democracy. The description of his father's palace and the dimensions of rejoicings made there on the birth of Mahavira, who accordo ing to the Svetambara version was only a second son, would lead one to the conclusion that Siddhartha was a ruling prince. Jacobi, however, does not feel inclined to that view. According to him, Kundagrama (or Kundalpura) was "a halting place of caravans, an insignificant place and an outlying village and a suburb of Vaisali, the capital of Videha", so that Siddhartha was only' sa petty chief, a baron, no king, nor even the head of his clan, but only a landowner, and exercised only the degree of authority which in the East usually falls to the share of one belonging to the recognised aristocracy of the country.” Such description is belied by later historical research. Historians are now prepared to accept that Kundagrama was the head
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