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Lord Māhāvīra and His Times THEORY OF EIGHT STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT (AȚTHAPURISA-BHŪMIYO)
Gośāla advocated that there are eight stages of development through which every man must pass for the attainment of perfection in order to become a Jina. The first stage is babyhood which begins with the birth of a person. Babyhood is followed by the play-time, and that again by the third stage when the child attempts to walk. This period of trial is duly succeeded by the period when the child is able to walk. When he becomes older, he is sent to learn under a teacher. In course of time, he renounces the world and equips himself, sooner or later, with all that his teacher knows. Then comes a time when he realizes that what his teacher taught him was not all, that in fact it was nothing. The Aśrama theory of the Dharmaśāstras was based on the notion of the gradual development of the self but it was formulated as a biological principle of evolution in its application to education. PENANCES
We also know about the penances of the Ājivikas. The Bhagavatī Sūtra says that they abstained from eating umbara (ficus glomerata), vaļa (ficus Indica), bora (jujube), satara (?) and pilankhu (ficus infectoria), all fruits, and also from cating roots, etc. The Sthānānga Sutra? says that the Ājivikas practised four kinds of austerities, viz., severe austerities, fierce austerities, abstention from ghee and other delicacies, and indifference to pleasant and unpleasant food. They observed the fourfold brahmacharya consisting of (1) tapassitā, asceticism ; (9) lūkhacharizā, austerity ; (3) jeguchchita, comfort-loathing ; and (4) pavivittatā, solitude. The Aupapātika Sutra: describes the system of collecting alms as adopted by the Ājivika ascetics. Some of them begged in every second or third or fourth or fifth or sixth or even in every seventh house; there were seven who accepted lotus stalks only as alms under certain conditions ; some begged in every house, but did not accept alms if there was a flash of lightning. There were some ascetics who practised penances by entering into big earthen vessels. 1. Dial, II, p. 72; Uvā, 11, p. 24; Jâ, IV, pp. 496-97. 2. Sthāna, 4. 2. 310. 3. Aup, 41.
