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Lord Mahavira
was a flourishing suburb of Vaishali and the metropolis of the Jnatras. Buddha's mother died soon after his birth; Mahâvîra's parents lived to see him a grown up youth. Since the birth of Mahâvîra caused an increment of their wealth, fame and merit (punya), his parents named him as Varddhamana. Buddha married a lady named Yasodhara; Mahâvîra lived a house holder's life in celibacy, practising the first vows—the Silavratas of a layman. Mahâvîra's-parents professed the religion of the Tirthankars and worshipped Parsvanatha. Similar seems to be the belief of the parents of Buddha, who were also followers of previous Buddhas. Siddhartha Gautama while enjoying the worldly life got disgusted with it and renounced the world against the will of his father at the age of about 29. Mahâvîra while passing a pious householder's life and meditating upon the true nature of things, gained insight of Truth and adopted the great vows of a Nirgrantha Sramana, with the consent of his parents, when he was 30 years of age. Saintly Life As Sramanas
As an ascetic, Buddha's course of adherence was not a fixed one. In his search for Truth, Gautama followed almost every cult of asceticism prevailing at the time. Once he came across a Sramana named Pihitasrava belonging to the Order of Tirthankara Parsva and took the ordination of a Digambara Jaina Muni from him; but he could not agree with the conception of hard penances of the Nirgranthas and founded his Middle Path'. This assertion of the Jainas has been corroborated by the declaration of Gautama Buddha himself in which he said that he suffered the hardship of going about naked, performed the practice of uprooting and pulling out the hairs of beard and head and took meals standing, in the palm of his hands, which are the fundamental practices of Naganya (nudity), kesalunchana (pulling out of hairs) and chariya (rules regarding meals) of a Jaina sramana."
Mahâvîra, on the other hand, followed the course of a Nirgrantha sramana and set himself to search out the Truth in a scientific manner. He studied the prevailing conditions and phenomenon in a psychological way and strange it was that he got many a ill cured without uttering a word from his mouth. The
