Mahavira His Life and Teachings

Author(s): Bimla Charn Law
Publisher: Luzac and Co UK

Page 37

MAHĀVĪRA: HIS LIFE AND TEACHINGS
protected like those of a tortoise. Like a rhinoceros he lived single and alone. He was free like a bird, always walking like the fabulous bird Bhāruṇḍa, valorous like an elephant, strong like a bull, difficult to attack like a lion, steady and firm like Mt. Mandara, deep like the ocean, mild like the moon, effulgent like the sun, pure like gold, patient like the earth, and shining in splendour like a well-kindled fire
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He lived, except in the rainy season, all the eight months of summer and winter, in villages only a single night and in towns only five nights He was indifferent alike to the smell of ordure and the sweet scent of sandal, to straw and jewel, dirt and gold, pleasure and pain, this world or the world beyond, to life and death. He exerted himself for the stoppage of the defilement of karma.
With supreme knowledge and faith and conduct he meditated on himself for twelve years. During the thirteenth year, in the second month of summer, in the fourth fortnight, the light fortnight of the month of Vaiśākha, on its tenth day, outside the town Jṛmbhikagrāma on the bank of the river Rjupālī, not far from an old shrine, in the field of the householder Syāmāka under a sal tree and the asterism Uttaraphalguni, he reached the