Lord Mahavira and His Times

Author(s): Kailashchandra Jain
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Page 68

Lord Mahāvīra and His Times
Mahāvira who believed in the freedom of the will. Henceforth Gośāla severed his connection with Mahāvīra and established a separate sect known as Ajīvika.
B.M. BARUAis of the opinion that thc Jaina account of Gośāla is biased and that it cannot therefore be relied upon. It is equally possible that Mahāvīra in the beginning of his ascetic career might have become a disciple of Gośāla. Gośāla was recognised as a teacher at least two years before Mahāvīra. He predeceased Mahāvīra by some sixteen years. There is a discrepancy between the accounts of the Bhagavatī and the Kalpa Sutra. According to the former, Mahāvīra spent six years in Paņiyabhūmi in the company of Gośāla, while the latter gives him only one year in that place, but six years in Mithilā. The inference from these two somewhat contradictory accounts seems to be this--that in the second year of his monkhood, Mahāvīra left the religious order of Pārsvanātha; and joined the School of Gośāla. And when six years afterwards the difference of opinion led Mahāvira to leave that school; he founded a new school of his own and organized a religious order mainly after the model of Pārsvanātha. This view of B.M. BARUA's appears to be only imaginary and is not supported by any solid dependable evidence. There are clear proofs that from the beginning of his ascetic life, Mahāvīra became a Jaina monk and that he did not join any religious order afterwards.
The incidental enumeration of the places visited by Mahāvīra in the Bhagavati Sūtra during his ascetic life does not tally with those given in the Kalpa Sūtra. The Bhagavali Sülra associates Nālandā, Rājagriha, Paniyabhūmi, Siddhārthagrama and Kūrmagrama with his early wanderings. The Uvāsagadasão mentions Vānijyagrāma, Champā, Bārāṇası, Alabli (Pāli Alavi), Kampilyapura, Polásapura, Rājagriha, and Srāvastí as the places that were visited by Mahāvira. Both the Bhagavali Sūtra and the Uvāsaga-dasāo would have us believe that he received extraordinary respect from certain rich householders even long before his Jinahood. Bārānasi is no other
1. Ura, Tr. by A. F. R. HOERNLE, App. I. 2. Bapir, p. 374.