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of "Mahavira" a great warrior- a warrior who waged a relentless war against all human weaknesses and frailties of human nature. After 12 years of very sever penances and tribulations he attained"Kaivalya" (omniscience) an absolute knowledge. Only after kaivalya he undertook the path of preaching. For 12 years he moved barefoot from place to place and had a very large following from east to west.
Gosala who was the leader of “Ajivaka" philosophy (those who believe in the determinism called Niyati), initially called himself a disciple of Mahavira but subsequently became his rival and met with a tragic death 16 years before Mahavira's Nirvana (death). Mahavira was a great spiritual revolutionary because of the following reasons:
1. He cut at the root of sacrificial violence 2. He successfully challenged Brahmanical priestly dominance.
He exposed the cast distinctions and established the principle of social democracy. He gave the females their deserved status and freely allowed them to enter the religious order. He took religion to the masses by adopting Prakrit as the medium of religious preaching and thus broke the monopoly of Sanskrit in the intellectual pursuits. He encouraged the concept of freedom and democracy in thought, speech, and action through debates and conferences. He explained the scheme of universal mechanism in a manner which gave importance to every nut and bolt of its working nature. He established religious democracy in its true form by proving that even a “Jiva of Nigod has the potential of being a Tirthankar and its life should therefore be equally respected and protected. He pointed out some serious fallacies of Vedic thinkers and challenged
the infallibility of the Vedas. 10. He revised the concept of Chaturyama of his predecessor Parshvanath
and introduced a separate category of good conduct as Bhramacharya (chastity and celibacy) He organized the Jain following by establishing separate orders for male and female recluses (sadhus and sadhvis) and other two orders of Shravakas and Shravikas (male and female house holders) He prescribed codes of conduct for all of them and put them under the discipline of competent heads called Gandharas.
9.
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