RELIGIOUS SECTS OF THE HINDUS. 253 



During the first six years of his peregrination, Mahavi'ra observed 

 frequent fasts of several months duration, during each of which he kept his 

 eyes fixed upon the tip of his nose, and maintained perpetual silence. He 

 was invisibly attended by a Yaksha, named Siddhartha, who, at the com- 

 mand of Indra, watched over his personal security, and where speech was 

 necessary acted as spokesman. At Ndlanda, a village near Rajagriha, Ma- 

 havira acquired a follower named Gosala, so called from his birth in a cow- 

 house, a man of low caste and vulgar propensities, and who acts as a sort 

 of buffoon.* He is involved in repeated difficulties and not unfrequently 

 receives a beating, but when free from fault, the Yakshas, who attend on 

 Siddhartha, come to his aid, and destroy with fire the houses and property 

 of his assailants. Amongst other enemies he provokes the followers of 

 Verddhana StjRi, the disciple of Chandra-acharya, a teacherof the Jain 

 faith, according to the doctrines of Parswanath. In the course of the 

 dispute it appears that the followers of Parswanath wore clothes, whilst 

 Mahavira was indifferent to vesture, and the latter consequently belonged 

 to the division of the Jains called Digambaras, or those who go naked, 

 whilst PArswanAth's disciples were Siveldmbaras, dressed in garments, t 



* Some curious and unintelligible things are related of this individual, which suggest a suspi- 

 cion that the author had in view some of the oriental legends relating to Mani or Manes. The 

 birth of Gosala, in a cow-house, may or may not refer to Christianity ; but it is also observed that his 

 father and mother carried about a Chitra pattilta, a painted cloth or picture, which Gosala stole from 

 them, and that when he adopted the service of MAHAvfRA, he abandoned the heresy of the picture, 



f They reply to Gosala's enquiry: f^^^Sff', xn^fSTSTH W^f "We are the pupils of 

 Parswa, free from restraint"— to which he rejoins ^J^J«rT?J^jfif ^^Jl ^f^nf^J^T^nfT 1 ^' I %^ 



^fT"f 5 i?f*HJ«5Tr TfT^Tl'. *§<*T !| " **ow can vou De ^ ree ^ rom restnunt encumbered with clothes 

 and the like, these heretical practices are adopted merely for a livelihood : wholly unfettered by 

 clothes and such things, and disregarding the body, the followers of such a teacher as mine is, are 

 the only persons exempt from restraint. "Further confirmation of MAHAvfRA and his followers being 

 Digambaras, occurs in various places, especially in a passage where Gosala gets beaten, and almost 

 killed by the women of a village in Magadha, because he is a naked Sramana, or mendicant. 



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