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Location of the place of Enlightenment of Lord Mahavira
. 167
and dilapidated Vyavrit Chaitya on the northern bank of the river Rijukulya He was undertaking the two days fast. It was in the afternoon, when the shadows had moved towards the western horizon, that He attained full knowledge and following the tradition. He waited there for a while and started His preaching. But as there was no human being present at the time, no one took the vow of abstention. The Lord then perceived in His vision that a rich Brahmana Somila was celebrating a great Yajna at Pava, in which the top ranking learned persons from different places were participating. The Lord thought it to be highly opportune and fruitful to go there and start His preaching.
He immediately walked on to Pava, which was 12 Yojanas away from Jrimbhikagama (according to calculation as given in the BHAGAVATI SUTRA 6/7, 12 Yojanas will be equal to 54 or 55 miles. A Samavasaran (religious discourse pavilion) was got erected there the next day. People flocked there to hear Him and have His darsana. Indrabhuti Gautama, one of the participants in the Yajna also came to know of the arrival of Lord Mahâvîra, and taking Him to be a hypocrite, went to out-wit Him in discussions. But lo ! he became a follower of Lord Mahâvîra along with all his 500 disciples. Another ten topmost Brahamanas and their disciples also followed suit. The Lord waited there for some days more and then went to Rajagriha, where he passed the 13th rainy season (Kalpasutra 120).
The aim of our thesis is to locate Jrimbhikagama. Before pursuing our points, we would like to refer to some of the previous assumptions regarding the location of the above-mentioned place. It will be also important to say here that hitherto there has been a wrong and unfounded belief that almost all the sacred Jain places in Bihar lie in southern Bihar, i.e. south of the river Ganges. The researches regarding end locations of Vaishali as the birth place of Lord Mahâvîra in the old Muzaffarpur district of North Bihar and Pavanagar as the place of the Nirvana of Lord at Sathiaon in the Deoria district of U.P. in recent years, have practically put an end to the old belief. (See an Early History of Vaisali by Dr. Yogendra Mishra, Vaisali by the Late Muni Vijaendra Suriji and our PAVA SAMIKSHA, the last two works in Hindi).
