Shraman Bhagvana Mahavira Part 1

Author(s): Ratnaprabhvijay, D P Thaker
Publisher: Parimal Publication

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Foreword. There are a number of learned works and treatises in Ardha Māgadhi, Sanskrit, Gujarāti, and other vernacular dialects of India by various authors, describing the life-incidents of Sramaņa Bhagavān Mahāvīra,-the last (twenty-fourth ) Tirthankara of the present series of twenty-four Tîrthankaras of the Jainas, but there is none in the English Language, that can be considered comprehensive as well as authentic.
The present work seems to be an effort to supply the English-knowing public with an accurate, comprehensive, and authen tio account of the twenty-six previous Bhavas (existences ), and of the twenty-seventh Bhava of Sramaņa Bhagavan Mahāvira, during which, after renouncing the luxuries of a royal family, he wandered for nearly twelve and a half years as an ordinary recluse over various towns and villages, practising severe austerities, with fasting without food and water, for two days, three days, eight days, a fortnight, a month, two months, four months, and six months, and taking very neagre diet on 349 days during a period of nearly twelve years and a half, suffered a number of hardships and troubles created by gods and by human beings, and acquired b y Kavala Jñana, Perfect Knowledge. During all these years of wanderings for more than twelve years, Sramaņa Bhagavān Mahāvīra did not at all preach the principles and practices of the Dharma propagated by the Tirthankaras.
Tirtbankaras-from their very birth possess the undermentioned four posfaati Mūla Atisayas,-eminent attributes acquired by birth-viz.1. The bodies of Tirtharkaras are most excellent, and excessively
more beautiful than the bodies of all the people in the world,
and they are always devoid of perspiration, disease, and dirt. 2. Their breath is as a fragrant as the perfume of a lotus. 3. The flesh and the blood of a Tirthankara, are as wbite as
the milk of a cow.