Study of Jainism

Author(s): T G Kalghatgi
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 79

Study of Jainism
Vrjji, Licchavi, Videha, Ugra etc... The capital of Vajjisangha was Vaisali. It was a beautiful city and we get the description of the town in the ancient works. Harisenakatha (55–165) describes the city and says “Atha Vajjramigha dese Vaisali nagari nspaḥ”. It was ruled by the king called Cētaka. The king Cētaka had seven daughters and ten sons, the eldest son being Simhabhadra. The eldest among the seven daughters was Trisala (Priyakarini). She was the queen of the Siddhartha, the Chieftain of Kundapura. Vardhamana Mahavira was their son. Rāja Siddhartha was famous as the Kșatriya king of the jñata kula (lineage). He was the follower of the Parsvanatha tradition. Vardhamana Mahavira was born on the thirteenth day of the lunar fortnight of Caitra Suddha (Caitra Suddha Trayodasi) in the early hours of the morning in 599 B.C. 4 The story of the mother of a tirthankara getting the auspicious dream of 16 or 14 objects at the time of the life entering the womb of the mother is uniformly to be found in the life of all the tirthankaras. We have already discussed about the nature of the dreams and the phenomenon while describing the life story of the first tirthankara Rşabhadeva 6 The birth of the son was celebrated through out the kingdom in all pomp and glory. He was called Vardhamana, because the prosperity in the kingdom of his father steadily increased with his entering the womb of his mother. (garbhävataraņa).
As a young boy, Vardhamana was handsome, brave and fearless. There are many stories about the extra-ordinarily brave acts that he performed when he used to play with his playmates. Once, the children were playing in the mango grove. At that time, a huge snake curled itself round the trunk of tree they were playing. Other boys ran for life in fight. But Vardhamana, coolly held the serpent in his hand and kept it away in a safe and quiet place. o On another occasion he was having a game called tindū saka krida 7 in which the winner in the running race was to sit on the back of the fellow runners upto the destination which was usually a tree. The heavenly deity joined the game assuming the form of a young boy in order to test his strength. Vardhamana sat on the back of this new boy and the boy ran faster and grew talled and taller assuming the proportion of huge giant in order to frighten the boys. But Vardhamana was not to be frightened. He