Mahavir Prince Of Peace

Author(s): Ranchor Prime
Publisher: Mandala Publishing

Page 15

www.kabatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsur Gyanmandir
INTRODUCTION
As a powerful and exceptionally gifted prince, Mahavira was expected to inherit his father's authority and wealth, but he chose a different path.
Tive Brendred years before the Common Era, two teachers lived in North India whose
teachings gave birth to two of the world's great faiths, the Buddhist and Jain religions. They were Gautama Buddha and Tirthankara Mahavira. Both hailed from royal families. both abandoned their privileged lives to pursue asceticism and both gained large followings as a result. Jainism, unlike Buddhisi, never strayed far from its originalhomelands untilthe twentieth century, and its followers have remained few - approximately 3.5 million worldwide in 2005. Yet Jains have enriched the religious and cultural life of India far more than their small numbers would suggest. Their most celebrated doctrineahimsa, nonviolence-was made famous in the twentieth century by Mahatma Gandhi, whose teacher was a Jain. And their temples are the most exquisite and architecturally sophisticated of any ever built in India.
The great teacher Mahavira, who was born in 599 BCE, was not the first lain. According to tradition he was twenty-fourth in a line of teachers Stretching back beyond the reach of history. The first Tirthankara, as the Tain teachers were called, was Rishabhadeva, whose life is recounted in the ancient Hindu text Bhagavata Purana. The twenty-second Tirthankara was Neminatha, whose life is linked to the life of Krishna. His successor, Parsva, is recorded in ancient sources
as a historical figure who lived around the ninth century BCE, and his teachings were adopted by Mahavira. Hence Mahavira did not so much found a new doctrine as develop an earlier one and preach it more widely.
His ministry took place mostly in the region of modern Bihar. In those days this was a prosperous land spread on either side of the River Ganges, relatively stable politically and economically. This made it a fertile ground for the development of religious thought and practice. Here also Gautama Buddha taught around the same time, and some of the places and people mentioned in Mahavira's life also figure in the life of the Buddha.
Mahavira was born as a prince in the city of Vaishali (modern Basarh, thirty miles north of Patna), which was prosperous and well connected. His royal status gave him an authority and influence that served him well. Some say that he never married, but popular sources say he married Yashoda and had a daughter named Priyadarshana. As a powerful and exceptionally gifted prince he was expected to inherit his father's authority and wealth, but he chose a different path.
At the age of thirty, two years after his father died, he left all behind and took up a life of asceticism. It is said that he plucked the hairs from his head, and abandoned wearing clothes altogether, even in the cold winters of North India. Detailed descriptions