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VARDHAMANA MAHÂVÎRA :
SOVEREIGN INSPIRER*
- Prema Nandakumar
On Diwali Day, we prepare an arc of lights to pay homage to a great benefactor of mankind, Mahâvîra. Research scholars say that Diwali was originally a Day of Remembrance observed by Jains, but with the revival of Vedic religions in later days, the Day of Remembrance became a festival to honour the triumph of Krishna over Narakasura. Today the festival has become an important integrating factor for our motherland.
The twenty-fourth Tirthankara of the Jain religion Vardhamana Mahâvîra, was born in 599 B.C. as the son of King Siddhartha and Queen Trisila Priyakarini. That was a time when the hold of the true Vedic religion had slackened, and a degenerate form of religion, full of sacrificial festivities with macabre manifestations, was in vogue. Material prosperity was accompanied by an indifference to moral values. Vardhamana, though born in a palace, consciously trained himself to be a perfect instrument to re-strengthen the moral universe of mankind.
Legends about Vardhamana's boyhood and youth remind one of Krishna's early exploits. For instance, Vardhamana subdued a vicious serpent, Sangama, that had terrorized his friends, and even danced upon its hood. In the same way, he brought under control an elephant in rut. Such exploits earned him the sobriquet, Mahâvîra, the supreme hero. Presently, he renounced earthly pleasure, did tapasya for twelve years under the shade of an Asoka tree and gained omniscient consciousness. During these years of tapasya and during his wanderings later, Mahâvîra exhibited virtues
* The Vedanta Kesari, Vol. 77. October, 1991.
