Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

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

Page 501

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STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATŤ SŪTRA [Ch. VIII One day some time on his way to Siddharthagrāma from Kūrmagrāma Lord Mabāvīra, being accompanied by Gośāla Mankhaliputra arrived at the same spot where was standing the sesamum plant. · Having come to that place, the latter told the former that his previous explanation about it was false and incorrect, because it did not grow and had got destroyed and its seven seeds were not reborn in one of its fruits after their deaths.
On this statement of Gośāla Mankhaliputra the Master narrated the whole fact regarding the re-animation of that plant, uprooted by the former previously, due to an immediate shower of rain.
But Gośāla Mankhaliputra would not still believe in the statement of Lord Mahāvīra about its re-animation and those of other plants that they fostered the same body in which they were reborn after their deaths. So he went back to that Sesamum plant and plucked out one capsule from it; while counting seven sesa mum seeds, which were splitted up by him from the capsule, by placing them on his palm, this kind of thought arose in his mind 'thus surely, all beings also are born after death and foster."
This was the doctrine of Parivarttavāda' (re-animation) of Gośāla Mankhaliputra which has already been dealt with in the seventh chapter in details in connection with the topic • Ajīvikism'. This is the cause of his dissociation from Lord Mahāvīra, and he left the Master for ever, after having received from him the instruction in the process of acquiring the fiery energy."
The evidences of the association between Lord Mahāvira and Gośāla Mankhaliputra at this period of asceticism are also corroborated by the Avaśyaka Cūrņi of Jinadāsa' in which a more detailed account of their ascetic life is found.
» Bh8, 15, 1, 544. • Āvasyaka Cúrni of Jinadāsa (7th Cen. A. D.)