heritage/rajgir-rajagriha.jpg · 1200×800Rajagriha — today Rajgir — was the capital of Magadha before Pataliputra, a city held inside a ring of five hills and long stone walls. Jain tradition makes it the birthplace of Munisuvrata, the twentieth Tirthankara, and places four of his five kalyanakas here: conception, birth, renunciation and the attainment of omniscience. King Shrenika Bimbisara, remembered in Jain texts as a devoted lay follower of Mahavira, ruled Magadha from this city.
Mahavira spent a large part of his teaching life in and around Rajagriha; accounts count ten or more chaturmas, the four-month rainy-season retreats, in the city. Digambara tradition holds that his first sermon — the divya-dhvani with which his teaching began — was given from Vipulachal hill, sixty-six days after he attained omniscience. Many munis are believed to have been liberated on these hills, and the site is honoured as a siddhakshetra.
The five hills — Vipulachal, Ratnagiri, Udayagiri, Swarnagiri and Vaibhargiri, whose names vary a little between sources — carry about a dozen Digambara temples, ten on the slopes and two at the base, reached by stone stairways counted at more than four thousand steps. A large image of Munisuvratanatha stands in the principal shrine. Rajgir's hot springs, its Buddhist remains and the ruins of the old walled city lie within the same few kilometres.
