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LIFE OF LORD MAHAVIRA
-S.K. Aiyangar
The venerable ascetic Mahâvîra, in the age and time of which we speak, met with five propitious conjunctions under the constellation (Kathuttarai) Uttaraphalguni, which were as follows: he descended from above in Uttaraphalguni, and entered on the embryonic state; in Uttaraphalguni he was removed from one womb to another; he was born also; he was shaved likewise, and from being a householder became a houseless wanderer, and lastly, in Uttaraphalguni, he obtained that real and supreme wisdom and perception, which is infinite in its subjects, incomparable in its kind, imperturbable, free from all obscurity, a touchstone for all other things, and perfect in all its parts. It was under Svati, however, that the lord obtained Nirvana (cessation from action, and freedom from desire)
In this age, and at that time, the adorable ascetic Mahâvîra, in the summer season, in the fourth month, in the right demilunation, during the increasing moon of Ashadha, and on its sixth day, descended from the all-joyous super-celestial abode called Pushapottara, which, like the lotus among flowers, is the chief of all the super-celestial abodes. During the currency of this Avasarpani (age), after the Happy age (consisting of four hundred billions of oceans of years) had passed, and the Happy age also (of three hundred billions), and the Happy mixed with Misery likewise (of two hundred billions), and the Miserable tinged with Happiness except forty-two thousand and seventy-four years, and eight months and a half; after twenty one Tirthankaras had been born, of the tribe of lkshvaku, and family of Kasyapa, and two in the Harivamsa tribe, and family of Gautama; twenty-three Tirthankaras had then passed away, when the adorbale ascetic Mahâvîra, the last of the Tirthankaras, and pointed out as about
