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Sesavati. The Digambara accounts, however, differ on marriage.
Mahāvira had no desire to hurt his parents if he could help it, and so he promised his mother that he would not renounce the world as long as his parents were alive. This would suggest that Mahāvīra was a dutiful and considerate son, although very strong in his determination, for in his twenty-eight year, when his parents died, he repeated his desire of renunciation to his elder brother. But the brother dissuaded him saying, 'the deaths of our parents are still fresh in our memories, your leaving us at this time would render our bereavement the more unbearable and painful.' Mahāvīra, therefore, live for two more years in the house. Renunciation
Disgusted with the non-finality of the things of the world, and pursuaded by a desire to search for the ultimate Truth, Mahāvīra formally renounced all his secular bonds and set out for the life of a houseless monk. The great event has been somewhat poignantly described in the Kalpa Sūtra :
'In this age, in the first month of winter, in the dark fortnight of Mārgaśīrsa, on its fifteenth day, when the shadow had turned towards the east and the first Pauruși was full and over, on the day called Suvrata, in the muhūrta Vijaya, in the palanquin Candraprabhā, Mahāvīra, followed on his way by a train of gods, men and asuras............... went right through Kundapura to a park called Șandavana of the Jñātrkas and preceded to the excellent tree Asoka.
There under the excellent tree Asoka, he caused his palanquin to stop, descended form his palanquin took off his ornaments, garlands, and finery with his own hands, and with his own hands plucked out his hair in five handfuls. When the moon was in conjunction with the asterism Uttarā-phālgunī, he, after fasting two and a half days without drinking water, put on a divine robe, and a
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