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Lord Mahāvīra and His Times
of his elder brother and elder sister. According to them, Mahāvira embarked upon his spiritual vocation during the lifetime of their parents. At first his parents were opposed to the idea of their delicately natured child undergoing all the hardships that fall to the lot of a houseless mendicant, but at last they acquiesced.
HIS ASCETIC LIFE : HIS TWELVE YEARS OF PREPARATION
The Achärānga Sutra has preserved a sort of religious ballad giving an account of the years during which Mahāvíra led a life of the hardest asceticism, thus preparing himself for the attainment of the highest spiritual knowledge. The account given in the Kalpa Sūtra substantially agrees with that of the Acharānga Sutra. Both the Achūranga and the Kalpa Sūtra narrate the story of his Sadhana in such a manner as to suggest that he had to make superhuman efforts before he could aspire to obtain the coveted position of a Kevalin. It is remarkable that this account of Mahāvīra Sadhanā given in the Achārāinga and the Kalpa Sutra does not bring-in Gośāla to form an cpisode. It is only from the Bhagavati Sutra and the Uvāsagadasāo that we know that the Ājīvika Teacher Gośāla lived in the company of Mahāvīra for a period of about six years during this ascetic period of Mahāvira's lisc.
Mahāvīra renounced the world at the age of thirty, It seems that he joined the order of Päráva of which his parents were lay followers. Whereas the Digambaras belicve that Mahavira abandoned clothes at the time of his initiation, the Sveti mbaras hold that he abandoned them after thirteen months. The Āchārānga Saira gives the following account of his ascetic life.
For a year and a month since he renounced the world Mahāvīra did not discard his clothes. Thereafter, he gave up his garments and became naked. Even when he used his robe, he used it only in winter. For more than four months,
1. Acha. 1, 8, 1, 3. 2. Ibid., I, 8, 1, 1.
