By: Paras Mal Jain
One day three Jain monks visited Shirdi. Baba greeted them with sugarcane juice and enquired from them about Jain mythology.
Baba explained after the monks left for Punatambe, that a chieftain called Naabhi, and his wife, Marudeva, had a baby named Rishabh. Rishabh became the first king and the first Tirthankara of the Jaina tradition. Baba told his devotees that he would explain the significance of offering sugarcane juice.
Also known as Adinath, Rishabh taught people how to live: from establishing the institution of marriage, adopting life skills, and cooking, to art, metallurgy, and even the Brahmi script. He gave them values and skills, such as ‘asteya’, not stealing another’s property, and ‘Satya’, not telling lies. He ruled for a long time. There came a point when he felt he had done his job. Once when he was sitting in the garden, he observed a flower wilt. Slowly, many visions of the impermanence of life began to fill his head. That day he decided to renounce his kingdom. Sai Maharaj explained that the act of giving up his kingdom and all riches to search for the Truth that is lasting and permanent in this impermanent world came as the lesson of aparigraha, non-possession. That was his day of realization. Before renouncing the world, he gave some important advice to his children about how to live in this world, equality to all being the most important, thereby laying the foundation for ‘ahimsa’.
He stood in the ‘kayotsarga mudra’ immersed in meditation. During that time, he uncovered a new idiom for a good life and the need to follow the four principles of ahimsa, aparigraha, asteya, and Satya – the destruction of desire. Baba reiterated his teachings encrypted in Sai Satcharitra.
As Upasani Maharaj did his penance in Khandoba Mandir during 1911-14, He neither ate nor drank, neither spoke nor slept. In that ‘stillness’ mudra he remained, unmoving, for six months. At the end of this period, suddenly, people found stirrings in the body of the still Adinath. Not only did Bhagwan Rishabh stir, He began walking barefoot towards the city of Vinita.
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