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them probably their whole Clan of Naya Kshatriyas were followers of the tenets of Parshvanatha-the twentythird Tirthankara-who is said to have preceded Mahāvira by 250 years. They died when Mahavira was twenty-eight years old, and the government of the country naturally devolved on his elder brother Nandivardhana. Mahavira now felt free to become an ascetic. After two years of abstinence and self-denial at home, he resolved to fulfil his vow-the vow that he had taken, long lives before, to renounce all, to reach illumination, and to become a saviour of the world. He took the permission of his brother and the royal councillors, gave away his wealth in charity, and then, surrounded by crowds of people, proceeded towards the Shandavana park outside the Kshatriya suburb of Vaisāli. There in the centre of the park, under the shade of the evergreen Ashoka tree, he quietly descended from his state palanquin, took off his ornaments, stripped off his princely garments, plucked out his hair in five handfuls, paid obeisance to all liberated spirits, and vowing to do no sinful act, entered upon that ascetic life, the austerities of which were to dry up all the founts of Karma and free him from the sorrowful cycle of birth and rebirth.
This great initiation, all sects agree, took place when Mahavira was thirty years of age, some time between 570 and 569 B. C., on the tenth day of the Iatter (?) half of Margashirsha or Magasara. For twelve
years he led a life of severe austerities, observing
