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AN OUTLINE OF LORD MAHAVÎRA PHILOSOPHY
-Dr. Bimla Churn Law
Mahâvîra who was known to the Buddhists as Nigantha Nathaputta, was the last and most famous of the Jaina Tirthankaras He was the son of Siddhartha, the chief of the Ksatriya Nata clan and Ksatriyani Trisala who was the sister of Cetaka, the most eminent among the Licchavi princes. His mother was also known as Videhadatta and Priyakarini of the Vasistha gotra. He was, born at Kundanagram1, a suburb of Vaisali and naturally when he assumed the monk's vocation, he retired to the Cheiyya of his own clan called Duipalasa, situated in the neighbourhood of Kollaga. He was the most notable scion of the Jnatrika clan. He was an older contemporary of the Buddha. The greater part of his life coincides with that of the Buddha. He was the head of an order, of a following the teacher of a school, well known and of repute as a sophist, revered by the people, a man of experience who had long been a recluse, old and well-stricken in years.2
He lived restrained as regards all water, restrained as regards all evils, all evils he washed away and he lived suffused with a sense of evil held at bay. As he was tied with a fourfold bond, he was called Nigantha (free from bonds), Gatatto (whose heart is gone). Yatatto (whose heart is kept down) and Thitatto (whose heart is fixed). He figures in the Jaina literature as a supremely gifted Ksatriya teacher and leader of thought who gathered unto him many men and women and was honoured and worshipped by innumerable sravakas or lay disciples. He was also called Vesalai or Vaisalika, a citizen of Vaisali.4 His parents fixed his name as Varddhamana or 'prosperous one', because with his birth, the wealth, fame and merit of the family increased. He was also known
