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EIGHTH CHAPTER
History
FIRST SECTION
Life of Lord Mahāvīra as depicted in the BhS
The Bhs, throws a welcome light upon various aspects of the history of its period, particularly the development of men and the society as revealed in its scattered evidences.
The political and social, economic and educational, and religious aspects of it have already been dealt with in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh chapters respectively, while the evolution of philosophical thought will be discussed later on. Here an attempt will be made and devoted only to the study of the development of personalities like Lord Mahāvīra and others, and that of the historical bearings of kings, clans and tribes during that period.
Life of Mahāvīra as depicted in the BhS
In the Bhs Lord Mahāvīra appears as a great ascetic, a teacher, a philosopher. a religious reformer and the last of the twenty-four Tirthařkaras? wandering with the retinue of his monk-disciples from village to village, city to city throughout North India extending from Eastern Bihar upto the united kingdom of Sindhu-Sauvīra, and preaching religion to the people of all social grades belonging to heterogeneous faiths, expounding and interpreting, developing and systematizing the metaphysical aspects of the Nirgrantha religion by refuting the arguments of his own followers and those of the other sects, and of the people at large on the religious and abstruse philosophical doctrines through his holy teachings partly in the form of questions and
1 BhS, 20, 8, 677.
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