Notes on Modern Jainism

Author(s): Mrs Sinclair Stevenson
Publisher: Oxford

Page 18

MODERN JAINISM,
subduing it. They had also a notion that a sense of shame implied sin, so that if there were no sin in the world there would be no shame. Hence they argued rather illogically that to get rid of clothes was to get rid of sin ; and every ascetic who aimed at sinlessness was enjoined to walk about naked, with the air or sky (Dig) as his sole covering." For twelve years Mahāvira wandered naked and homeless over the land, never resting during summer or winter for more than a single night in a village or for more than five nights in a town,* begging his food and indifferent whether good or bad were given to him, guarding his thoughts, guarding his words, guarding his senses, his heart as pure as water in autumn, and himself as unsoiled as the leaf of a lotus.
At last in the thirteenth year he reached enlightenment. He was sitting under a s'āl tree on the banks of a river not far from the town of Grimbhikagrāma, in the position that is now so familiar from Buddhist statues, with legs and arms crossed. He had fasted for two days and a half, exposed to the heat of the sun without even drinking water, when, "engaged in deep meditation, he reached the highest knowledge and intuition, called Kevala, which is infinite, supreme, unobstructed, unimpeded, complete and full.” I He had now become a Jina (i. e. Victor), an Arihanta (i, e.
* S. B. E. xxii, 260, ff. (Rules still binding on Jaina monks and
nuns, though they have enlarged the one night into a week and
the five nights into a month.) + A popular Jaina traditiou declares that at the time of receiving
enlightenment Mahāvira was sitting in the godoha asana
posture (i, e, the position of milking a cow.) I S. B. E. xxii. 263.