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him the most cordial welcome; how Shatānika, king ou Kausāmbi; listebéd: with deep interest to his discoursos; how. Shrenika, king of Magadba, asked him thousando of questions concerning the faith, and, all of them being
så tisfactorily answered, became one of the strongest ... champions of the religion of the Jina.
We now come to the closing scene of Mabāvira’s life. His last rainy season was spent in Pāpā-the modern Pāvāpuri-a small town in the Patna distriot, still held sacred by the Jainas. Hastipāla, the ruler of the place, was a great patron of Mahāvira, and, acoording to the Kalpa-Sutra, it was in the office of his scribe that the venerable ascetic died. He attained Nirvāna, cat asunder the ties of birth, old age and death, became a Siddha, a Mukta, freed from all misery, freed from all pains.
This is said to have occurred in 527 B. C., some 605 years before the commencement of the Shaka era, and 470 years before King Vikramāditya. Mahāvira's system of teaching, as it has come down to us, is full of metaphysics and philosophy; but apart from these, its main purpose, summed up in a few words, is to free the soul from its mundane fetters by means of the three jewels: Samyak Jnāna, Samyak Darshana, Samyak Chāritra-Right Knowledge, Right Faith, Right Conduot. His great message to mankind is that birth is nothing, caste is nothing, but Karma is overything, and on the destruction of this Karma depends final Emancipation.
