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Lord Mahâvira India, certain joint activities might be valuable. Thus far these have been restricted to shared celebration of the auspicious moments in Mahâvîra's career. It remains to be seen whether such efforts will be fruitful in healing a rift of two millennia. When such factors are considered as the continuing Digambara claim that the Svetâmbara scriptures are totally inauthentic, or the still prevalent Svetâmbara practice of markings the lips, eyes, and torsos of naked Jina-images (even those of Mahâvîra) in their temples, thus “clothing" them and making it impossible for Digambaras to worship there, it must be admitted that a full-fledged reconciliation may not be forthcoming in the near future. Mahâvîra's Encounters with Makkhali Gosala
To return to Mahâvîra's post renunciation career, both traditions have him wandering from place to place for twelve years, engaging with grim determination in severe penances. The most important of these voluntary mortifications involved complete fasting-abstaining from water as well as food, sometimes for as long as a week. The epithet digha-tapassi (he who engages in extended penances), which is applied to Niganthas in the Buddhist texts, probably alludes to this sort of fasting:53 The practice has made an indelible impression upon the Jaina psyche; even today many of the Jina's followers, from children to the elderly, occasionally undertake long waterless fasts as a major expression of the holy life. This emphasis upon fasting, more than any other single factor, distinguishes the religious practice of the Jaina layperson from that of the Hindu communities which surround him. Jaina monks undergo such fasts as a common and regular aspect of their daily existence.
The Diga, baras have a tradition that Mahâvîra observed a vow of silence during these twelve years as a wanderer. Since silence is not a prerequisite to the saintly life even for Digambaras, we may well be justified in regarding this notion as a sectarian device aimeu at denying certain episodes found in the Svetâmbara version of the same period. Of greatest import here are several stories to which we have alluded earlier, involving Mahâvîra and the Ajivika Makkhali Gosala. Gosala was by profession a bard, spinning tales and showing pictures for the entertainment of local audiences. He was the follower of an old, established Ajivika sect;
