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RELIGIONS
Eternal India
encyclopedia
(Benaras) where he preached his first sermon. A few days later a band
of sixty young ascetics became his followers and he sent them out in all
directions to preach the Buddhist Dharma. For over forty years his
reputation grew and the Buddhist Order increased in influence. The end
came at the age of eighty at Kusinagara, modem Kasia, in the
Gorakhpur District of Uttar Pradesh. His last words were: "Decay is
inherent in all composite things. Work out your salvation with
diligence."
VARDHAMANA MAHAVIRA (599 B.C. - 527 B.C.)
Mahavira renounced his wife and daughter and became an ascetic
at the age of thirty when his parents were dead. At first he wore a single
garment which he never changed
but after thirteen months even this
fell down and spent the rest of his life
in complete nudity. For twelve years
he remained in Meditation, wan-
dered from place to place begging
his food and subjecting his body to
severe austerities. In the thirteenth
year of his asceticism, Mahavira
found full enlightenment and be-
came a
Jina,
a conqueror of pas-
sions. His followers became known as Jainas, followers of the
Jina.
Mahavira attained
Nirvana
through self-meditation at the age of sev-
enty-two at Pava in south Bihar. The central tenet of Jainism is
ahimsa
or non-violence to all living beings including insects and
anekant
(many sided vision).
PROPHET MUHAMMAD (570 A.D.-632 A.D.)
Prophet Muhammad was born in Makkah in 570 A.D. At six he
lost his mother, Aminah, and at eight his grandfather. Muhammad
came under the care of his uncle, Abu Talib, and accompanied him on
trading journeys to Syria. In 595 he married an affluent widow
Khadijah.
The Prophet was of a contemplative turn of mind and was in the
habit of occasionally spending nights in a hill cave near Makkah about
610, he had a vision of a majestic being (later identified with the angel
Gabriel) and heard a voice saying to him, “You are the Messenger of
God,” Until his death in 632 he received, at frequent intervals, verbal
messages that came directly from God. The Qman is the collection of
these divine revelations, which were memorised and written down by
his companions.
Muhammad the Apostle or messenger of God (Rasul Allah) began
preaching the masses publicity in 613 A.D. He preached Islam
meaning “Surrender to the will of God” and its adherents are called
Muslims meaning “those who have surrendered.”
The Islam he preached was strict monotheistic religion. The three
fundamentals he preached were Unity and Oneness of God, Prophethood
and The Day of Resurrection. These three units constitute the essence
of his message to the humanity.
In 622 to escape persecution to which he and his followers were
being subjected to in Makkah, he left for Madina following an
invitation from some of his followers who-had established themselves
there as Muslims. This is the
hijrah
(Hagira) which means emigration.
The Islamic Era beings on the first day of the Arabic years in which the
hijrah took place on July 16, 622. Muhammad reached Madina on
September 24,622.
In 627, a force of 10,000 Makkans led by Abu Sufyan laid siege
to Madina but failed to dislodge Muhammad whose position was now
considerably strengthened. In January 630, Muhammad who had left
Makkah as a persecuted Prophet re-entered it in triumph. Many
Makkans became Muslims. He died at Madina in June 632.
SHANKARACHARYA (8th century A.D.)
Shankara who propounded the doctrine of Advaita, or Monism,
was bom in a Namboodiri Brahmin family at Kalady, a village situated
on the banks of the river Purna in Kerala. It is said that once while
mother and son were bathing in the river one morning a crocodile
caught hold of Shankara's foot. Shankara cried out to his mother asking
for permission to become a monk. He
said that if he became a monk the destiny
threatening him with death in the mouth
of the crocodile might be averted and he
might live. From that moment he became
a wandering monk. He declined even to
accompany his mother back home and
said that hence forth his God was his
mother as well as father and the whole
world was his home. However, he as-
sured his mother that he would be with
her in his last days. She had only to think of him and he would be with
her.
Proceeding northward in search of a guru, Shankara reached the
banks of the Narmada where he met Govinda Bhagavatpada who
initiated him into Sanyasa. Shankara thereupon received instruc-
tion in Vedanta from Govinda Bhagavatpada. After a time Govinda
Bhagavatpada commanded Shankara to go forth to Banaras, the
heart of Bharat Varsha, and expound there the scriptures. One
morning in Banaras when he was going to the temple of Viswanath
accompanied by his disciples, after a bath in the Ganges, an out-
caste carrying a pot of liquor on his head and followed by dogs,
came close to him and Shankara asked him to keep away. The man
retorted, "Whom do you mean to keep away, the soul or the body?"
Shankara realised that the outcaste was none other than Lord
Viswanath who had assumed that form in order to teach Shankara a
profound spiritual truth. Shankara refers to this episode in his
Maneesha Panchakam, where the refrain of the song is : "Salutation
to him who comes as the Guru in the shape of the outcaste as well
as of the twice-born."
From Banaras he went to Badrinath, Kedarnath, Kashmir and
Mount Kailas. During his wanderings Shankara had a premonition
that his mother's end was near. Remembering his promise to her he
hurried to her bedside. He became her Guru and enabled her to
meet her death peacefully and with unshakeable faith in God. The
Namboodiris of Kalady objected to Shankara, a Sannyasin, cremat-
ing his mother's body as being contrary to orthodox practice. Shank-
ara cremated the corpse in the backyard of the house. A samadhi built
in 1910 marks the place. Shankara cursed the people of the village for
their hard-heartedness and declared them unfit to study the Vedas or
entertain Sannyasins. The descendants of these families do not enjoy
these privileges even today.
Shankara resumed his travels. He visited Srirangam, Tirupati and
other places in the south. He established maths at Kedarnath, Dwaraka,
Sringeri, Puri and Kashmir. The sannyasins of the order which he es-
tablished are called Dasananis, because they are recognised by the ten