Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

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

Page 505

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STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI SUTRA
[Ch. VIII for the city of Vitibhaya, the capital of Sindhu-Sauvira ruled over by king Udayana.1
It is here in the Mrgavana garden he initiated the king to Sramana Dharma on his inner urge to undertake the state of houselessness from the worldly life.
His visit to Vāṇijyagrāma
It is recorded in the BhS that Lord Mahavīra paid his four sacred visits to Vanijyagrama and delivered his religious discourses in the assembly of his followers on different religious and philosophical subjects at the Dutipalasaka Caitya.
It is here the Master converted Gängeya, a follower of Lord Parsvanatha's sect to his Pañcayama Dharma and absorbed him into his order by explaining the questions whether all beings were born and would die at an interval or without an interval, birth and its divisions with reference to the combination of one, that of two, upto that of innumerable numbers of different kinds of beings and four kinds of birth and their respective causes."
On another occasion Lord Mahāvīra explained the questions raised by his disciple, Sama hastin on the existence and total number of Trayastrimsaka gods of Camara upto those of Sakra, those of Isanendra and those of Sanat-Kumara, when Gautama Indrabhuti failed to give a satisfactory answer to the same problems put by his brother-monk to him.
Here again on the third occasion the Master expounded the theory of time and its divisions, the cause of the longest day and shortest night, that of the shortest day and longest night on the request of Sudarśana, a merchant of Vanijyagrama. He, being reminded of his former life as prince Mahabala in the family of king Bala of Hastinapura and his initiation conducted by Sramana Dharmaghosa, the disciple's disciple of Vimala, the thirteenth Tirthankara, etc., undertook the state of houselessness, having his inner urge for emancipation doubled, after getting initiated by
1 Bhs, 13, 6, 491. Ib, 10, 4, 404.
2 Ib, 9, 32, 339.
4 Ib, 10, 4, 404.