Brâhmanic family the Kâśyapa. His mother, who was called Triśalâ,
belonged to the family of the governors of Videha. Siddhârtha's residence
was Kuṇḍapura, the Basukund of to-day, a suburb of the wealthy town
of Vaiśâlî, the modern Besarh, in Videha or Tirhut. [Footnote: Dr.
Bühler by a slip had here "Magadha oder Bihâr".—J. B.] Siddhârtha was
son-in-law to the king of Vaiśâlî. Thirty years, it seems, Vardhamâna
led a worldly life in his parents' house. He married, and his wife
Yaśodâ bore him a daughter Anojjâ, who was married to a noble of the
name of Jamâli, and in her turn had a daughter. In his thirty-first year
his parents died. As they were followers of Pârśva the twenty-third
Jina, they chose, according to the custom of the Jainas, the death of the
wise by starvation. Immediately after this Vardhamâna determined to
renounce the world. He got permission to take this step from his elder
brother Nandivardhana, and the ruler of his land divided his possessions
and became a homeless ascetic. He wandered more than twelve years, only
resting during the rainy season, in the lands of the Lâḍha, in
Vajjabhûmi and Subbhabhûmi, the Rârh of to-day in Bengal, and learned to
bear with equanimity great hardships and cruel ill treatment at the hands
of the inhabitants of those districts. Besides these he imposed upon
himself the severest mortifications; after the first year he discarded
clothes and devoted himself to the deepest meditation. In the thirteenth
year of this wandering life he believed he had attained to the highest
knowledge and to the dignity of a holy one. He then appeared as a prophet,
taught the Nirgrantha doctrine, a modification of the religion of
Pârśva, and organised the order of the Nirgrantha ascetics. From that
time he bore the name of the venerable ascetic Mahâvîra. His career as a
teacher lasted not quite thirty years, during which he travelled about, as
formerly, all over the country, except during the rainy seasons. He won
for himself numerous followers, both of the clergy and the lay class,
among whom, however, in the fourteenth year of his period of teaching, a