Tirthankar Mahavir and His Sarvodaya Tirth

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

Page 68

TIRTHANKARA MAHAVIRA AND HIS SARVODAYA TIRTHA
5. Manuvya, 6 Mauryaputra, 7 Akampana, 8 Acala, 9 Medarya, 10. Prayasa 8
Among the sravaka followers, the most important was Emperor Srenika Bimbisara of Magadha. Among his active followers, there were 14,000 monks, 36,000 nuns, 100,000 male sravakas and 300,000 female sravikas The number of devotees and admirers was beyond count
In the end, while wandering from place to place, Bhagavan Mahavira arrived at Pava There he stopped any further wandering and sermonising. ended all activities of body, mind and speech, reached the highest state of pure (white) meditation, exhausted all karma bondages including the four which stick till the final moment, fully discarded his mortal frame and entered into the final liberation, nirrāna
This event took place just two thousand five hundred years ago. It was the last day of the dark half of the month of Kartika, and the night was pitchy dark. The morning was soon to start Even before the rays of the morning sun could brighten the hill tops Lord Mahavira went into liberation
On receiving the news of his liberation, the gods came down to perform the last ceremony The city of Pava became illuminated with lights When black she-cobra bites some one and turns upside down, its white colour on the other side comes up and dark colour on the surface goes down, in the same manner, it appeared that the dark night which took away the Lord from our midst turned upside down so that its brightness on the other side had come up
Difficult to say whether the festival of light (dīpāvalī) should be called a festival of light or darkness, since it took away our Lord from us But since he had entered into libera
8 indrabhutirti proktah prathamo ganadharinam
agnibhütırdviti yaśca vāyubhutistytiyakah / 41. Sucidattasturīyastu sudharmah pancamastath / sastho mānubya it yukto mauryaputrastu saptamah // 42 astamohakampanākhyātıracalo navamo matah medaryo daśamohant pastu prabhāsah sai va eva te // 43
-Hariyamsa Purana, 3/41-43