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greatly impressed by the later's capacity to undertake severe austerities and joined him in his movements from place to place. He then began to proclaim him as a pupil of Mahavira though the later never initiated him as such nor claimed that he was his pupil, Goshalaka himself seems to have undertaken many sever austerities with Mahavira. He had, however, a bad temperament and a habit of acting and speaking
indiscriminately. Once he saw an ascetic performing penances and putting lice on his own body to feed them. Seeing this, Goshalaka mocked and joked at him which infuriated the ascetic who threw his Tejoleshya (magic fire) at Goshalaka. This would have killed Goshalak but he was saved for Mahavira's intervention by throwing some cooling power to counter Tejoleshya. Goshalak, impressed by this incident, himself acquired power to throw Tejoleshya on his adversary.
Subsequently Goshalaka left the company of Mahavira after moving with him for six years. He had three main incidents in his life with Mahavira which convince that "Niyati" which is the doctrine of determinism is the only correct principle which explains the scheme of the universe.
The last incident which finally convinced him about his theory was when a sesame plant came to life in the next weather even though he had uprooted it in the previous season after knowing it from Mahavira that it was going to survive. This convinced him that his Karma of uprooting it was of no avail if it was destined to survive. After this he had no faith in the theory of Karma. He parted company with Mahavira and proclaimed himself a Tirthankara and gathered his own following.
One rich influential person called "Sadalputta" was Goshlaka's follower. He had a debate with Mahavira about the validity of the theory of Niyati and was convinced by: later that the theory of Karma cant be ruled out as incorrect. He became the follower of Mahavira. Goshalaka tried to bring him back to his fold in vain. By this time Goshalaka's following had begun to thin. Goshalaka had also tried to win over Mahavira's followers but failed. One such failure was in case of one Ananda, another influential gentleman, who was Mahavira's follower. These failures and rivalry with Mahavira seems to have made Goshalaka very unhappy. Once when both of them were at the same place Goshalaka decided to have a direct confrontation with Mahavira and went to him. Mahavira knew what was going to happen. So he warned his disciples not to invite any confrontation with him. In the incident which followed, two of Mahavira's disciples who resisted the wrath of Goshalaka were burnt to death by the Tejoleshya of Goshalaka. He, however, wanted to have direct confrontation with Mahavira himself.
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