Studies in Jainology Prakrit Literature and Languages

Author(s): B K Khadabadi
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 25

Studies in Jainology, Prakrit
comprchensible to his hcarers, he (Mahavira) used 10 condescent very low to the level of their intelligence and draw on incidents familiar to them from their daily lives."" The Bhagavi contains several references that testisy to this unique aspect of the great seer's mode of teaching. Among them the following one is so very intcresting:
“Kei parise tarune balava jāva niuna-sippovanae purisam junnam jarajajjariya jāva dubbala kilamia jamala-pānina muddhanam si abhihanijjā. . . . . . tassa purisassa veyanahimto pudhavi-kāic. . . . . . .veyanam paccanubhavamanc viharai.”32
"Just as a weak ailing old man, when struck on head with hard blow by a very strong young man, feels pain, similarly an earth-bodied being too when struck (or hurt) experiences far the greater pain than that.” It is just pleasure to read and repeat such passages for Mahāvira's voice and mode of teaching.
Thus Lord Mahavira by adopting the natural language of the common masses as the medium of his preaching and teaching for the first time in the known mass instructional history of India, and by teaching them in an ideal mode with all sincerity, solemnity, zeal, skill, resourcefulness, and sense of purpose, he proved to be a doyen of effective instruction to common people, great educationist, teacher and social reformer and stands before us even today as a rich source of light and inspiration.