The Period in which Mahavira lived was an age of acute intellectual upheaval in the cultural history of India; and among his contemporaries there were such religious teachers as Kesa-kambalin, Makkhali Gosala, Pakuddha Kaccayana, Purana Kassapa, Samjaya Belatthi-putta and Tathagata Buddha. Mahavira inherited a good deal from earlier Tirthakaras. He left behind not only a systematic religion and philosophy but also a well-knit social order of ascetics and lay followers who earnestly followed ...