Lord Mahavira and His Teachings

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

Page 52

Lord Mahavira and His Teachings
seems that this was the custom which was followed by Mahavira by keeping Devadushya on his skandha. We know from the Buddhist texts that nigganthas were having only one sataka. This should be that one Sataka which was customarily kept by them at the time of pravrajya. They did not accept other than this, that is why they are called by the Buddhist To HTCT FANTE ATT I This tradition was explained later by Acharyas in such a way that it became almost unbelievable on the one hand when they said that devadushya was given by Indra at the time of pravrajya., And on the other hand the Shvetambara Acharyas found in it the proof of their augh, though it is quite clear that it was not used by Lord Mahavira and that after 13 months he was without any cloth. So we can say that keeping a cloth at the time of pravrajya. has nothing to do with सचेल or अचेल Stuh but only it was a custom which was followed by Mahavira. Though at heart he was not in favour of keeping any cloth whatsoever, he simply kept it in order to follow the tradition. So we see that when it was removed from his person, he did not care to ask for other.
The secondary meaning of the word 377897 is 3172473977 according to Churni, which means that this was done so that the others coming later may follow him. This meaning of the word is also possible because whenever a tradition is followed by a great
1. This was possible because of the word Deva in Devadushya.
Really speaking it means only 5717, in Hindi. Because of its high price it was called devadushya. It was called dere also, see Angavijja. p. 160.