Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

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

Page 511

486
STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI Sutra
[Ch. VIII
in the fourth month of the rainy season in the seventh fortnight of Kārttika on its fifteenth day in the last watch of the night in king Hastipāla's office of the writers in the town of Pāvā.
The account of the life of Lord Mahāvīra as depicted in the Bhs, and the other Jaina texts is also corroborated by the Buddhist works which mention him as the head of the Nirgrantha order, a man of experience, a great ascetic, old and well-striken (bent in years), revered by the people of all classes."
It appears from the study of the evidences of the Buddhist texts that the Master was a senior contemporary of Lord Buddhas and predeceased him..
The teachings of Lord Mahāvīra as embodied in the Bhs reveal that the bold flight of human imagination in the absence of adequate varifying data at the time of this text is the most thoughtprovoking and wisdom-evoking, as it has rightly been said by Gomperz” that inexperience is the mother of wisdom. This truth is amply and brilliantly expressed in the speculative daring, not sacrificing the logical subtlities, in the thoughts evolved by the religious and philosophical ideas of the Master.
He brought an immortal and eternal life with him and left it in his demise to be worshipped by mankind.
SECOND SECTION Chronology of Lord Mahāvīra
It is recorded in the Bhs that Lord Mahāvīra renounced the world with the attainment of godhood of his parents, having lived the life of a householder for thirty years (tīsam vāsāim āgāravāsamajjhe vesittā).
1 Jaina Sūtra p. 264; (Kalpa Sutra), 1, 22-23, ? Dialougues of the Buddha--S. B. E. 11 (3) p. 66,
Samaññaphala Sutta, Dighā-Nikāya, 1. p. 491. 8 Cf. Sambhuya Sutta, Sutta Nipāta, pp. 92- foll. • Samagãma Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya, II, pp. 243 foll. * Gomperz : Greek thinkers, Vol. I. 6 Bhs, 15, 1, 541.