Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

Author(s): J C Sikdar
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 497

4
STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI SŪTRA
[Ch. VIII
In this respect other Jaina texts present a picture of his family life, revealing two stages-the one of boyhood and the other of household.
Thus it is recorded in the Kalpa Sutra that his birth was celebrated by his parents for ten days, together with the citizens of Ksatriyakunḍagrama with great pomp and grandeur in a very colourful way, like that of Mahabala of the BhS.
According to the Svetambara tradition Lord Mahavira married Yasoda, a Ksatriya girl of Kaundinya gotra who bore him a daughter named Anojja". She was given in marriage to Jamāli, a Ksatriya prince who became his disciple later on and led the first schism in the Nirgrantha order on account of his doctrinal difference with the Master in regard to the theory of Karma.®
Both the Acaranga and the Kalpa Sutra" fully corroborate the evidence of the Bhs that Mahavira left the world at the age of thirty after the death of his parents.
Ascetic Life of Lord Mahavira as revealed in the BhS
The text reveals that in the first year of his asceticism Lord Mahavira having observed the vow of fast of half a month by half a month, passed time in his first intermediate residence at Asthikagrama during the rainy season.
In the second year he practised austerity by observing the fast of one month by one month during the rainy season, having taken shelter in a weaver's workshop at outer Nalanda in the neighbourhood of Rajagṛha.
1 Bhs, 15, 1, 541
2 Kalpa Sutra-Fifth lecture, 99-106, 107.
3 Bhs, 11, 11, 429.
45 Acārānga Sutra, 15 (Fifteenth lecture). Vide 'Mahavira' by
Dr. B. C. Law 5. 21.
BhS, 9, 33, 386.
Acaranga Sutra, 1, 158, 15. 17.
8 Kalpa Sutra, Fifth lecture-109-110, 111, 112. See Jacobi's Jain Sutras.