Lord Mahavira

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

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effect of sinful decds committed in former existences, and the practice o the threefold self-rest aint, of the body, speech and mind, as a means of stopp ng 'thé production of new Karma. As justified forms of penances, Mahavira was prepared to recognise only a (fas og', अणोदरी (limiting the food that one cats , भिक्षाचर्या (eating only begged food), Tharan (abstaining from special items of food which one most enjoys), A777 (bodily austerity), sfatietat avo dance of temptation by control of senses and mind), प्रायश्चित्त (confession and penance,विनय (reverence), aqra77 (service rendered to the aged and the helpless), F91EITT (the study o the scriptures), TA (meditation), TTT (feeling and showing absolute indifference to the body and its nceds). He gave no honoured place to practices like the tending of a fire; the exorcising of evil spirits ; the performance of agnihotras ; the taking of regular baths ; the living under water, or in caves, or on trecs ; the eating of roots, leaves, moss, flowers, or bark of trees, or of grass ; the bcsmcaring of body with ashes, etc., just the practices in which the other parivrajaka orders had gloried. It appears that Parsva's monks had been fairly lax in their miorals and discipline, but they were far more regulated in their conduct than the other parivrajakas, for there is an occasional mention in the Jain texts of the weaker spirits in Parava's order finding it hard to observe the rules and consequently joining the other parivrajaka sects with less rigorous rules of disciplinc. But it is certain that the austerities prescribed by Mahavira for himself, and later on for the members of his Order, presented an infinitcly harder code of penances and were combined with a far more rigorous discipline of ethical and spiritual conduct than was prevalent in any parivrajaka scct at that time, and there is no doubt that Mahavira carned the hostility of the other sects for doing so.
· As regards the persecution of Mahavira' by the témptcr-gods, it is a reminder of the story of Mara in Buddha's lifc: Nsara is looked upon in Buddhist literature as the supreme tord of all evil, the chief seducer