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Lord Mahavira
Mahâvîra underwent many sufferings during his spiritual career, specially in the pathless country of the Lâdhas, in the Vajjabhûmi and Subbabhúmi, where 'the dogs hit him, ran at him' and the people used abusive language and asked him to go away. However, he enjoyed extensive royal patronage also. Srenika Bimbisâra, the king of Magadha, was devoted to Mahâvîra and was related with him on Mahâvîra's mother's side. The Jaina attempt to explain away the particidal act of Bimbisara's son Kunika Ajatasatru suggests that Ajatasatru was more inclined to Jainism than to any other religion. Later Jaina tradition brings nearly all the kings of north India in those days in relation to Mahâvîra by describing their queens as daughters of Cetaka, the maternal uncle of Mahâvîra.
At first Mahâvîra wandered single, but gradually he became surrounded with monks and nuns. He organised them into a sangha into which the church of Pârsva was obviously merged. He had an excellent community of 14,000 Sramanas with Indrabhuti at their head, several thousand nuns with Chandana as their leader and innumerable lay-votaries and hundreds of sages to preach his tenets. 18 The Kalpasůtra states that he had nine Ganas and eleven Ganadharas. His eleven Ganadharas were Indrabhuti, Agnibhuti, Vayubhuti, Aryavyakta, Sudharaman, Mandikaputra, Mauryaputra, Akampita, Achalabhratr, Metârya and Prabhâsa, each of whom had a large body of Samanas whom they had taught. All these eleven Ganadhara Qare said to have died at Rajagrha after 'fasting a month without drinking water'. The Kalpasutra mentions 14 other disciples and numerous sthaviras who had preached Jainism in different channels (Sakhas). Sudharman, the fifth of the eleven Ganadharas, became the head of the Jaina church after Mahâvîra and was in turn succeeded by his chief disciple, Janbu. 19
The Uvâsagadasâo tells us of ten chief lay devotees of Mahâvîra; (1) Ananda and his wife, (2) Kâmadeva, (3) Chulaniniya, (4) Suradeva, (5) Chullasayaga, (6) Kundakoljya (who met Gosala but remained unshaken in the faith of Mahâvîra), (7) Saddaiaputta, (8) Mahasayaga, (9) Nandipipaya and (10) Sajihipiya.20
At the age of 72 Mahâvîra died at a place called Majjhima Pava (which may suggest that, contrary to his usual practice, he
