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becoming the chief desciple of the said Srutakevalin at Pataliputra and left his home with Bhadrabahu for South India in order to perform severe penance,
The Hathigumpha Inscription of King Kharavla (2nd century B. C.) proves that King Nanda (4th century B. C.) of Pataliputra was a great devotec of the first Tirthamkara Adinatha. Emperor Asoka constructed caves for Jaina-saints on Barabara Hills (nearby Gaya Town), out of his generosity and religious policies. These caves provided them facilities for meditation. All these works mentioned above are the embodiments of the pride and glorious past of Bihar.
The Prakrita Canonical literature contains exhaustive descriptions of various regions and towns of ancient Bihar. It preserves the geographical, geological, economic, poltical, social and cultural details, but unfortunately, this valuable literature is badly neglected as yet. There is a crying need for its critical and comparative study.
Lord Mahavira was born on Monday the 12th April of 599 B C at the holy place of Kundagrama, a suburb of Vaisali (North Bihar). He was called Jnatiputra by ancestral heredity, a Vaisalika and Videhdinna from the view point of his birth place and Kasyapa from the Gotra (family origin) point of view. His father was king Siddhartha and mother Trisla, Priya-Karini. Mahavira's maternal grand father was the president of Vaisali republic. Gautama Buddha was so much impressed with the constitutional ideals and the organisation of the republic, that he compared Vaisalikas with the gods.
Mahavịra had a royal position by birth. All the worldly pleasures were round him but he was never attached to them. King Udayana of Sindhu desa, King Satanika of Kausambi and the Magadha King Srenika were his father-in-law (Mausas). They were renowned Emperors of 6th century B. C. Although his homely and out-worldly riches were enough to generate pride and worldly attachments in him, but he always remained unconcerned with them. From the very beginniug, Lord Mahavira had been a great thinker. He observed the worldly activities very minutely and analysed them in detail from different angles. As a result he thought, "Tnis world is perishable and its pleasures are transitory". So, he took renunciation at the age of thirty at Jnatri-vana (forest, situated perhaps near his home town).
He practiced penance for twelve years. He left even his clothes and endured scorching sun, chilly cold, torrential rains, mosquito-bites, etc., with patience. People troubled him many times but he regarded the suffering as the consequence of his various Karmas.
Mahavira got Kevalajnana (ultimate knowledge of reality) on Baisakha Sukla Dasami at the age of forty two, when he was doing penance under a Sala
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