Tirthankar Mahavir and His Sarvodaya Tirth

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

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TIRTHANKARA MAHAVIRA AND HIS SARVODAYA TIRTHA
of joy, a sort of happiness, happiness itself. But why hanker after happiness ? For, hankering is misery. There is really no happiness in the objects coveted by the senses. This man, though commanding the wealth and affluence of a Cakravarti is not happy. In the eyes of the savants, all the treasures of a Cakravarti are useless. They throw them out as if a dry hay and are immersed within. In the presence of the great thing within which is erernal and full of joy, every external object grows dim.
“Dharma is not a word, but an application. So one covelous of self shouid not merely memorise the word but realise it in life; he must be all dharma."
On hearing these inspiring and soul-touching words of the Jina, the inner sense of Emperor Priyamitra woke up, as a lion awakes at the roar of another. His attachment for the empire, wealth, wives and progeny broke down. The earth which he had conquered over years, the women he had acquired through love, he gave up as if he had no relation with them, as if they were nothing to him. When the attachment for which he had conquered the world and acquired the wives, itself was gone, what use were they to him.
That mighty Emperor got initiated into the life of a nude monk in the presence of the great Jina. When he acquired the triple gems, his fourteen gems dropped out. When he acquired the great treasure of concentrating within, he had no more use of the material treasures When this great monk, who had discarded the six segments like a trifle ended his lifes he was born in the 12th heaven named Sahasrara as a god named Suryaprabha When he descended from there, he was born as Nanda, a son unto king Nandivardhana from his wife Viramatı in the city of Chatrapura in the land of Bharata in the isle of Jambu.
By birth king Nanda was an indifferent personality because of the samskāra of the previous birth. One day he had gone to a monk named Prosthila to pay his homage and obeisance when his inherent detachment suddenly flared up on hearing