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BY Mr. Chandraprakash Shah UK All benevolent, infinite knowledgeable and infinite powerful Shree Tirthankaras establish a Dharma tirth to elevate all living beings from this beginning less and unbelievable horrible and materialistic world to unending and permanent bliss and happiness of salvation. I bow down to them and seek their blessings to finish this article. The day on which Sraman Bhagwan Mahavir attained emancipation is famous as Dipavalee in Jainism and observed in different manner compared to Laukik Dipavalee celebration. We have forgotten our Dipavalee and accepted Laukik Dipavalee nowadays. There are about eight days Dipavalee celebration in Jainism. It begins from Dhan Terash and ends on Gyan Pancham or Labh Pancham or Shrut Panchami. There are last three days of Ashwin month and first five days of Kartik month. There are five Kalyanak celebrations of each
Tirthankara. They are: All are very auspicious occasions and are celebrated with the presence of heavenly gods. Except the last Kalyanak, when the Tirthankara attains emancipation, people and gods are very happy in the company of Tirthankara since they obtain purest form of knowledge. They can remove their doubts, realize their past, present and future happenings. When Tirthankara emancipates practically all glamour and happiness vanishes. Bhagwan Mahavir knowing his emancipation very near approached Pavapuri alias Apapa town. The heavenly gods created Samosaran (beautiful dome). Bhagwan Mahavir sat on golden throne inside Samosaran. There were special, gorgeous and beautiful twelve qualities surrounded him. It was a day of Kali Chaudash. All his principal eleven disciples were present including Gautamswami. Heavenly gods and goddesses, other people too were present. He had royal patronage too. Rich financiers and merchants, kings, queens and princes and their ministers were followers of Mahavir. Some of them were present to witness the last moments and last discourses of Mahavir. One of them was king Punyapal. He had received eight dreams the night before. Punyapal told Mahavir that he had become scared after having these dreams. He narrated them before Mahavir and requested Mahavir to forecast its results. We shall deal each dream separately in detail later on. But the mention of eight dreams is of importance and hence I provide the names of them. They are: These dreams seem to be beautiful but the forecast of Mahavir was horrible and it related to entire Jain four fold organizations and universe. Mahavir gave discourses for 16 Praharas continuously i.e. two days and two nights without any break. In these 16 praharas he spoke on 55 chapters of Punya (merits) and 55 chapters of Paap (demerits). These are well-known as Uttaradhyayan Sutra in Jainism. Mahavir also forecasted the horrible future of fifth and sixth Aras of present Avasarpini. The details of this will be given later in subsequent articles. As soon as the time for emancipation reached nearer Mahavir said to Gautam to go to a farmer named Devsharma and enlighten his soul with knowledge. This was the day of Amavasya of month Ashwin. At midnight on that day Mahavir attained emancipation and relinquished this universe for ever and sat on salvation seat. He will never return from there. His emancipation caused extinguishes of Bhav Deepak and turned the atmosphere in darkness and hence those who were present at that time lighted Dravya Deepak. Dipavalee festival since then commenced for Jains. It is celebration of NIRVANA KALYANAK and not enjoyment of worldly pleasures. Why? Because we wish to have NIRVANA as early as possible. Later on Gautamswami returned after meeting Devsharma. He learnt about emancipation of Mahavir and began crying. Later on as he was knowledgeable preceptor, he went into deep thinking and converted these thoughts into meditation and concentration of non-attachments. At the dawn of first day of new month i.e. Kartik he achieved luminous and brilliant kevalgyan (Omniscience). Heavenly gods celebrated his kevalgyan with all gaiety and pleasures. Jains take out gorgeous procession on the second day of new month of Kartik every year. In British rule, in Kolkatta, the procession of Bhagwan Mahavir was the scene of gaiety and pleasures for all communities. It was moving in the entire town and halting at Shitalnath Temple. Now let us observe how Jains celebrate Dipavalee:
Therefore Dipavalee of Jains is quite different than others. Jains do not explode crackers. They do not believe in extravagant spending on Dipavalee festival. They believe in charity and donations what they save from non-use of crackers. It is also called accounts squaring or to balance merits and demerits. In Laukik Dipavalee, people repaint their houses, buy new clothes and other commodities, people go merry, enjoy with cracker bursting, eating and wondering etc. While Jains do paint houses, purchase essential commodities, but as far as possible try to avoid colossal violence, observe fast, worship the Tirthanakaras' images, decorate the Jina temples, observe Jaaps, businessmen keep their shutters closed. -------------------------------------------
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