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squarely, went towards the elephant caught hold of his trunk with his strong hands, and mounted his back atonce.'
In person, Mahāvīra was very handsome and impressive. The several names by which he is called indicate that the chief quality of his character was courage and valour. He was intelligent and possessed of a very keen intellect. The Sūtras mention that from his very birth, he possessed supreme, unlimited, and unimpeded knowledge and intuition, and had the aspirations of a man of knowledge.
Mahāvīra's early life was spent in a royal atmosphere tempered with healthy influence of a republican character. His upbringing was quite balanced and his development was perfectly proportionate. His early years were spent in comfort, but not in luxury. His ambition was that to conquer, but not with a view to mastery over others. From his later thinking we find that he was deeply influenced by the democratic ethos of the society in which he was brought up. He was also impressed by the inadequate application of this ethos in the political, economic and social life of the community without its being based upon a really democratic religious system, so that later on he took it upon himself to work out and propagate a system of complete spiritual democracy in the form of Jainism.
Mahāvīra was an unusually reflective lad from his early childhood, and thought of renunciation in his early youth. He was, however, always prevailed upon by his affectionate parents to change his resolve, In order to create around him a luscious atmosphere of amusement and pleasure, and to engage his mind in worldly things, they married Mahāvīra to an exceedingly charming princess, Yasodā, of the Kaundinya gotra, and a daughter Anujā or Priyadarśanā was born to them. This daughter, eventually, was married to a nobleman Jamāli, who after becoming a follower of his great father-in-law, ended by opposing him. Their child, or Mahāvīra's grand-daughter was named Yašomati or
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