Tirthankar Mahavir and His Sarvodaya Tirth

Author(s): Hukamchand Bharilla, K C Lalwani
Publisher: Kundkund Kahan Digambar Jain Trust

Page 27

TRADITION AND BACKGROUND
17
and took his place on the mountain. He had come to marry with Rajul but events turned in a manner in which he got married with Liberation.
The pathetic episode in the life of Nemi Kumara and Rajul has been sung by the Jaina poets in a touching and thoughtprovoking manner It has also been the theme of many traditional paintings and crafts. It was indeed an unusual episode of separation for the Jaina stories-separation without a physical contact. And what did Rajul get out of it except a pleasant reverie ? fun
!! m e d
et
Compared to her, Yasodhara enjoyed the company of the Buddha for some time. She had a son to support her, she had the expectation that the Buddha would some day come back. Sita too enjoyed the pleasant company of Rama and she had the expectation of a future restoration-though circumstances were very much against her, she knew for certain that Rama's mind had not changed so hope still lurked. Even Radha was not fully disheartened. But Rajul got nothing before she was discarded, and she held nothing on which to live in memory. Besides, the mind of Nemi Kumara too had changed, and so there was no hope on which she could live on. There was the need of a Bhavabhuti 16 to depict the pathetic story of this pious lady.
Monk Neminatha was already self-enlightened, and now he started making steady progress on the steps to stability. On the 56th day from his initiation, he rose to the stage of ksapaka-śreni, which was the exrteme point in penance, and soon acquired the supreme knowledge and became a Bhagavan. He shone like a beacon light for full seven hundred years, showing the right path; and, in the end, on completion of the life-span of a thousand years, he entered into liberation at the Girnar mountain.
This is the reason why Girnar has been considered to be a siddhak setra, a Land of Liberation This is a holy place of the Jainas. Located near Junagadh in Gujarat, this place attracts also many who are not Jainas This was not only a land
16 Bhavabhuti was a Sanskrit poet