Twelve years of meditation and penance passed with great success for Lord Mahavir. His life was exemplary. He put forth unsurpassable examples of truth, non-violence, forgiveness, compassion, fearlessness, yoga and true knowledge.
In the thirteenth year, he faced another calamity. Near the village of Shammani, he stood in a meditation posture. Just like at the beginning of his asceticism, he met a cowherd who left his oxen in the care of Lord Mahavir.
The cowherd went into the village and returned a little later. The oxen had drifted away while grazing.
Not finding his oxen, he asked, “Ascetic, where are my oxen?”
Mahavir was in deep meditation and unaware of all this. The cowherd asked again, and once again he did not get a response.
He was irritated and shouted, “You hypocrite! Are you deaf?
Don’t you hear anything?”
Mahavir still did not respond. The cowherd became very angry, “You pretender, it seems that both your ears are useless. Wait a minute! I will fix your ears.”
He picked long nail-like thorns from a nearby shrub and pierced the ears of Mahavir deeply by hammering the thorns in.
Even such excruciating agony did not move Mahavir from his meditation or evoke any feeling of anger or aversion in him.
Completing his meditation, he went to the village for alms. He arrived at the door of a trader named Siddhartha. A doctor was sitting with him. Both of them gave food to Mahavir swami with due respect.
The doctor told Siddhartha, “Friend, the face of this monk has a divine glow, but there is a shade of tiredness too. Some inner pain is visible in his eyes. I feel this great sage suffers from some inner agony.”
Siddhartha replied, “Friend, if such a great sage suffers from some kind of pain, we should immediately go to him and treat him.”
After taking alms, Mahavir swami returned. The doctor and Siddhartha followed him to the place where Mahavir swami rested. During examination the doctor found the thorns stuck in his ears. Seeing this, they arranged for the necessary instruments and medicines. They used some medicated oil and tongs and pulled out the thorns. This caused such unbearable agony to Bhagawan Mahavir that an anguished cry was forced out of him and it was so loud that it splited a big rock in two parts. The doctor dressed the wound with some coagulant. Mahavir continued to sit there calm and quiet in deep meditation.
The reason Mahavir swami had to bear this calamity was because of what he did as Triprushtha Vasudev (birth no. 18). At that time, he liked to sleep while listening to music. He told his servant to stop the music once he fell asleep.
However, his servant was enjoying the music and forgot to stop it. When he woke up and still heard the music playing, he was furious. To teach his servant a lesson, he had hot lead poured into his servant’s ears so he would not be able to hear anything anymore. This servant was reborn as the cowherd who then proceeded to put the thorns in Mahavir swami’s ears.
Whenever we do any karma, we have to bear the consequences. In each incident of difficulty, we see the conquest of Mahävir’s soul and mind over his physical pain and suffering. His meditation and penance purified his soul. It helped him to separate himself from perishable and mortal worldly things and concentrate on the liberation of his immortal soul.