________________
The Founders of Jainism
147
Henceforth properly called Mahâvîra or Great Hero, the victorious ascetic lived for almost thirty years longer and preached his message widely. As before, he wandered from place to place during two-thirds of the year and only in the four months of the rainy season remained in some single city. A precise catalogue is given in the Kalpasutra of the cities in which his rainy seasons were spent throughout all forty-two years of his life as an ascetic: "Mahâvîra stayed the first rainy season in Asthikagrama, three rainy seasons in Champa and Prishtichampa, twelve in Vesali and Vanijagrama, fourteen in Rajagriha and the suburb of Nalanda, six in Mithila, two in Bhadrika, one in Alabhika, one in Panitabhumi, one in Sravasti, one in the town of Papa in King Hastipala's office of the writers: that was his very last rainy season." Many of these places are well known, such as Champa the capital of Anga, Vesali Mahâvîra's own native metropolis, Rajagriha the capital of Magadha, Mithila in the kingdom of Videha, and Sravasti, celebrated in the annals of Buddhism.
45
Mahâvîra enjoyed family relationship to several of the leading rulers of his time as we have seen, and both Bimbisara (or Srenika) who ruled at Rajagriha around 540-490 B.C. and Ajatasatru (or Kunika) who succeeded his father on the same throne about 490-460 B.C. are said to have regarded his teachings with favor. The actual conversion of King Srenika by a young disciple of Mahâvîra is recounted in Lecture XX of the Uttaradhyayana,46 but since that king is also claimed as a patron of Buddhism in the traditions of that religion we may suppose that he manifested a bicad interest in the doctrines of various teachers rather than committing himself to any single sect.
As intimated in the quotation from the Kalpasutra given just above, death came to Mahâvîra in the town of Papa (or Pava). This was a place not far from Rajagriha, and is today a small village called Papapuri or Pavapuri in the region of the modern city of Bihar.47 In the words of the Kalpasutra which follow immediately after the quotation just given: "In the fourth month of that rainy season,...in the town of Papa, in King Hastipala's office of the writes, the Venerable Ascetic Mahâvîra died, went off, quitted the world, cut as under the ties of birth, old age, and death; became a Siddha, a Buddha, a Mukta, maker of the end [to all misery], finally liberated, freed from all pains."
