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Lord Mahāvira and His Times
informs us that while Gośāla held the soul to be Rūpī, Mahāvira considered it Arūpī. Among the striking similarities between the two doctrines ; one may mention the common expression Sabbe Sattā Sabbe pānā...bhūtā...Jīvā, the division of animals into Ekendriya, Dvindriya, etc. Belief in the omniscience of the released was also common. Gośāla and Mahāvīra both enjoined the practice of nudity on saints. THE BUDDHA
Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, was the junior contemporary of Mahāvīra. We possess no authentic accounts of his life and teachings. Two poems in the Sutta Nipāta and a few early Suttas supply us with some data but for details, we have to depend upon comparatively later. works, which appear to have preserved older traditions. EARLY LIFE
Gautania alias Siddhārtha was born in 563 B.C. at Lumbinivana, now identified with Rumminidei on the border of Nepal. His father Suddhodana of the Säkya clan was the ruler of Kapilavastu. His mother Māyā died seven days after his birth, and he was brought up by his mother's sister Mahāprajāpati Gotami. When he grew up, he married Yaśodharā, and had a son, Rāhula.
The idea of renunciation, according to the later text, came into his mind from seeing four persons in four different stages--an old man, a cripple, an ascetic, and a corpse. In the early texts like the Sutta Nipāta, it is simply stated that looking at the miseries of the world, he embraced the life of a wandering hermit at the age of twentynine.
Passing through a number of villages, Gautama at last reached Vaiśālī where he stayed at a hermitage of the teacher Ārāda Kālāma. There he became his disciple and learnt the Sankhya doctrine from him. Since evidently he was not satisfied, he left the hermitage of Ārāda to become a disciple of another teacher Rudraka Rāmaputra, who was then living in the outskirts of Rājagrha. Not satisfied with Rudraka either, he left him and began to observe severc penances along with five other Brāhmana ascetics. He was deserted by the Brāhmaṇa companions when they noticed slackness on his
