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THE TIRTHA (MORAL ORDER) AND THE TIRTHANKAR
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leads to a moral decline Individual decline cumulatively causes collective moral deterioration Non-violence is a sine qua non to stave off this moral descent and equanimity serves to fortify non-violence
In the oppressive atmosphere of violence, hatred, sacrificial rites and inequality his precept was hailed like the first beam of sunlight after a moonless night The masses craved for this light It was given to the moral paragon like Mahavira to provide it to them Numberless men and women dedicated themselves heart and soul at his mighty feet
Chandanabala presented herself to seek initiation Vedic tradition forbade initiation of females Among the shramanas females were allowed initiation The nuns of Parshwa tradition did exist then but proper guidance was missing They lapsed into Vedic mendicancy after flouting initiation
Lord Mahavira sought to revolutionise this anti-feminist attitude The Vedic exponents dubbed them as inferior creatures The Lord could not uphold such a narrow and biased view He established the nunhood and thus lent a new lease to the movement for female reconstruction · The Lord initiated Chandana and entrusted to her the task of supervising female saints Indrabhuti and ten other scholars were asked to lead the male Shramanas
Lord Mahavira had been brought up in the liberal republican atmosphere The principle of political and economic decentralisation was valuable to him An atmosphere of nonviolence was vital to him Such a noble system hardly reconciles with totalitarianism
The Lord decentralised the monasticism by dividing it into categories Indrabhuti and other were the heads of these groups The first seven ganas or groups were led by one leader each Akampit and Achalbhrata led the eighth and Metarya and Prabhas the ninth one Thus a co-ordinated joint preceptorship was founded Those who would not brace themselves up for monkhood and still aspired to be initiated into the religion of equanimity were initiated in the minor observances
