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176
Lord Mahavira and His Times
TĀVASAS
The Tavasas lived in forest where they occupied themselves with meditation, sacrificial rites, self-torture, and in reading the scriptures. They gathered fruits and roots for their sustenance and visited the villages for alms. On one of the journeys he made during his ascetic life, Mahāvīra put up in a hermitage (āsamapada) in Sannivesa.1 He came across another hermitage named Kanakakhala in Uttaravāchāla where five hundred hermits were staying;still another hermitage is referred to in Poyanapura where Vakkalachīri was born.3
The Ovāiya Sūtra4 mentions the following classes of Vānapattha Tāvasas residing on the bank of the Ganga. It is possible that some of the classes might have belonged to the later period than that of Mahāvīra but we are not in a position to distinguish them positively.
Hottiya : they offered sacrifices. Kottiya : They slept on the bare ground. Pottiya : They put on a special kind of clothes. Jannaž : They performed sacrifices.
Saddhai : They belonged to the devotional class of ascetics.
Thālai : They carried all their belongings with them. Humbauttha : They carried a water vessel with them.
Dantukkhaliva : They lived on fruits and used their teeth as mortar.
Ummajjaka : They bathed taking only a dip.
Sammajjaka : They bathed without taking a dip in water.
Nimajjaka : They remained in water only for a short time.
Sampakkhāla : They rubbed and cleansed their limbs with mud.
Dakkhiņakūlaga : They dwelt on the south bank of the Ganga. 1. dīva, Nir, 463. 2. sīra. chū, p. 278. 3. Ibid, p. 457 ; Bühiya Dāruchiriya in the Dhammaboda A. II, pp. 209 1. 4. Ora, p. 170: Nir.7, 3, p. 39.
