Lord Mahavira and His Teachings

Author(s): Vallabhsuri Smarak Nidhi
Publisher: Vallabhsuri Smarak Nidhi

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Lord Mahavira and His Teachings
and demand of our age as well as in conformity with the established cmons. of Jaina: Monastic. Jurisprudence.
ATMARAMJI— THE GURU .. Atmaramji was an ardent student of Jainism in all its myriad manifestations and implications. The education and training which he imparted to the young Vallabhavijayaji stood the latter in good stead, when he was called upon to interpret and explain the tenets of Jainism. So great was the popularity of Atmaramji that he was invited to the World Faiths Conference in the United States to represent Jainism. He deputised Shri Virchand Gandhi, the crudite scholar of Jainism, who persuasively propounded the ethical code of Jainism, which is based on nonviolence, truthfulness, non-possession and penance, ideas very much similar to the Gandhian concept of a happy society. The suecess of Shri Virchand Gandhi was mainly due to the briefing he had from Atmaramji and Vallabhavijayaji.
TO THE SHELTER OF FOOD
An unusual incident occurred in the early life of Acharya Shri Vijayavallabhasuri. Seeing his mother on death-bed, he asked her anxiously: "To whose shelter are you leaving me?" "I leave you to the shelter of the Lord" was his mother's apt reply. "His shelter is the best shelter; the rest is all illusion," she added. These words, touchingly told, sowed the seeds of religious faith that was to blossom forth in later years. At the age of sixteen, he renounced