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487
Sec. II] STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI SUTRA
In the first year of his asceticism he passed the first rainy season in Asthikagrāma and the second in a weaver's workshop at outer Nālandā in the second year.
By this year Gośāla Mankhaliputra also took shelter in the same workshop without obtaining any residence elsewhere and was accepted by the Master as his disciple after his repeated earnest requests on four occasions as already mentioned
It is further learnt from this work that Lord Mahāvīra passed six years with Gośála Mankhaliputra in the Market place (Paniyabhūmi) of Kollāga Sanniveía as it is already discussed.
After this period the latter left the former on the doctrinal difference arisen out of the problem of the birth and rebirth of a sesamum plant.
Next, he is found to pass time at the premises of the workshop of Hälahalä, the potteress in the city of Srāvasti, having attained the round of twenty-four years of his initiation when the spiritual duel took place between him and Lord Mahāvira at the Kosthaka Caitya on the revelation of the story of his birth and life, made by the Master in a reviling manner.
It is stated that when Gosala Mankhaliputra cursed Lord Mahāvīra by saying that he would die within six months due to the effect of the fiery energy released by him on his body, the Master replied that he would live as Jina for another sixteen years, but the Ājīvika leader himself would die within seven days.
During the time of his suffering from the bilious fever at Mendhikagrāma he made the same statement to his disciple, the houseless monk Sība, to allay his fear, that he would live for another sixteen years and a half as Jina, unharmed.
The calculation of these numbers of years (30 +2 +6 +18 (24) +16) amounts to a figure of seventy-two years which is the total length of the life of Lord Mahāvīra.
1 Bhs, 15, 1, 557.
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