Mahavira his Times and his Philosophy of Life

Author(s): Harilal Jain, A N Upadhye
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

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dropped the necklace at the feet of Vāriṣeṇa, who was plungd in meditation in a cemetary, and ran away. The royal guards reported this to the king. The king took Vāriṣeņa to be the theif and, in a fit of anger, ordered him to be beheaded. But due to the spiritual aura (dharma-prabhāva) of Variṣena, the weapons of royal guards proved ineffective.
Seeing his divine powers, the king stopped the guards and tried to bring him to the palace; but he did not come and became a monk observing mahā-vratas. On his begging tour, he went to a village Palasa-kheḍa; there he instructed his erstwhile friend and made him enter the ascetic order. But the friend had still temptation or attachment for his own wife. Vāriṣena took him, however, to the apartment of his mother Celana, and by his exemplary detachment confirmed his friend in the practice of ascetic virtues.
(e) Śrenika's Son : Gaja-kumāra
King Śrenika had a queen Dhana-śri by name. While she was carrying pregnancy, she had, during the fifth month, a longing that she should sport in a park, going there seated with her husband on the back of an elephant and along with her retinue in great pomp, when the sky is cloudy and drizzling lightly. Though it was not the rainy season at that time, Abhayakumāra managed all this with the aid of his Vidyadhara friend and fulfilled the pregnancy longing of his step-mother.
In due course, Dhana-śrī gave birth to a son, Gaja-kumāra. As a youth, he went to lord Mahavira, heard his religious sermons, and accepted renunciation. Sometime Gaja-kumāra went to the Kalinga country, and started practising ātāpanayoga meditation seated on a slab of stone, to the west of the capital town, Danti-pura. The ruling king there had no idea of such a meditation; so he asked his minister why this monk was exposing himself to heat like this. His minister Buddha-dāsa was inimical to Jainism. He told the king that the monk was suffering from the disease of vata-roga, and
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