Lord Mahavira Vol 02

Author(s): S C Rampuria
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati Institute

Page 60

Lord Mahavira His Teachings
reactions to the time, his preachings, and his contribution to Religion and Philosophy.
As a result of hard ascetic life of so many years Vardhamana attained the sole aim of his life, viz. the non-attachment to the worldly things and hence became the omniscient one seeing the heart of everything, external as well as internal. He found himself capable of preaching what he had realized in his deep meditations. He organized the religious order of his own and became a Tirthankara of repute amongst so many Tirthankaras of his times. Non-Jaina Tirthankaras like Makkhali Gosala, Ajitakesakambala, Purana Kassapa Sanjaya and others were contemporary of Mahâvîra. Most of them were indulging in Akriyavada i.e. rejecting the theory of Karma.
Mahâvîra saw in this Akriyavada the root cause of worldly sins. So, his first sermon was directed against this theory. This sermon established on firm ground the theory of Kriyavada presupposes the belief in one's being born in this or that class of living beings according to the acts one has performed in this or previous births. Moreover, Mahâvîra realized that attachment and aversior. are the root-causes of our actions (Kama). He realised that unless the internal greed and desire to possess are removed from the minds of the people neither spiritual nor worldly progress is possible. He realised that people were after worldly wealth but were not ready to have the spiritual treasure. He also realised tha. violent attitude of man was due to this desire to possess the property. So, in order to uproot this violence from man, the only way was to destroy the desire to possess.
Makkhali Gosala was preaching fatalism. So in his philosophy there was no place for the freedom of will. Everything happens in this external world on in the spiritual field according to the predestined design. Nothing can be changed by the effort of the soul. But against this Fatalism, Tirthankara Mahâuîra propounded that the soul is the master of its fate. It is the architect of its own future life, and so it can change it according to its own will and karma if it so desires. Thus he made man the master of his own life, present as well as future. He explained that there is no master other than one's own self. So it was necessary to discipline the self in such a way that it can control and conquer the internal enemies, viz., passions and at last free itself from them.