Indrabhuti Gautama was a celebrated brahmin scholar with five hundred students of his own. When he heard that a wandering teacher at Pava was drawing the crowds away from a great sacrifice, he went to refute him. Mahavira greeted him by name and spoke aloud the one doubt Gautama had never told anyone — whether the soul truly exists — and answered it. Gautama became his first disciple, and his students followed him. The other ten scholars gathered at the sacrifice came one by one, each with a private doubt, and became the eleven ganadharas.
Gautama is the questioner of the scriptures: again and again the Agamas open with Gautama asking and Mahavira answering. Yet his great love for his teacher was itself the last attachment that kept omniscience from him. Tradition tells that Mahavira sent him away on an errand on the night of his nirvana. When Gautama heard at dawn that his teacher was gone, his grief turned to understanding that even this attachment must go — and he attained Kevala Jnana that morning.
He is remembered for humility despite great learning, and for labdhi, spiritual powers — in the Svetambara telling he fed fifteen hundred ascetics from a single small bowl of rice pudding. Many Jain families invoke his name at the start of the new year for auspiciousness.
