Question 3

QUESTIONER: THERE WAS A KING NAMED PONDRAK IN THE TIMES OF KRISHNA. THIS MAN HAD DECLARED KRISHNA TO BE A FAKE AND HIMSELF TO BE THE REAL KRISHNA. CAN YOU SAY IF SIMILAR THINGS HAVE HAPPENED IN THE LIVES OF BUDDHA, MAHAVIRA AND OTHER ENLIGHTENED BEINGS?

Yes, they did happen. In the times of Mahavira, a man named Goshalak had declared that he, not Mahavira, was the real tirthankara.

The Jews crucified Jesus on the basis that a carpenter's son was falsely claiming to be a Messiah; he was not real. The real messiah was yet to come. The Jewish tradition believed that a messiah would come; many past prophets like Ezekiel and Isaiah had predicted it. Just before the birth of Jesus, John the Baptist had gone from village to village announcing that the messiah is on his way who will redeem all people. And then a young man named Jesus came on the scene declaring that he was the messiah. But the Jews refused to accept him; instead they crucified him, on the grounds that he was a fake, he was not the real messiah.

No other person except Jesus claimed to be the messiah, but any number of people claimed that Jesus was not the messiah. Why? They said that to be acknowledged as their messiah, a person would have to fulfill certain conditions. He would have to perform a few miracles. One of the miracles to be performed was that the messiah would come down from the cross alive. The Jews believed that descending alive from the cross would be enough of a miracle to make them accept him as their messiah.

Now Christians believe that the resurrection of Jesus happened on the third day after the crucifixion. They say that after three days, two women devotees of Jesus saw him alive. But his opponents don't accept it; they say these two women were so much in love with Jesus that they could see Jesus in fantasy, it could not be real. There is nothing on record in the whole of Jewish scriptures that Jesus came down from the cross alive, that he fulfilled that condition of being their messiah. Jews are still waiting for the coming of the messiah their prophets predicted.

But Goshalak made a clear and emphatic claim to be the real tirthankara in place of Mahavira. There were many people who accepted Goshalak as the tirthankara, and their number was not small, it was large. And the controversy lasted long, because Jaina tradition believed that the twenty-fourth tirthankara, who would be the last in a long line of tirthankaras, was coming. So Goshalak staked his claim and a large group of Jainas accepted him as such.

Apart from Goshalak, there were about six contemporaries of Mahavira who were believed by their followers to be the twenty-fourth tirthankara. They did not openly state their claim as Goshalak did, but their followers believed they were. Sanjay Vilethiputta and Ajit Keshkambal were among a half dozen people who were believed to be tirthankaras. Even Buddha's devotees thought that Buddha was the real tirthankara; they often scoffed at Mahavira.

It is always possible that when a person like Krishna is born, or is being awaited according to certain predictions made in the past, many people will claim that exalted position, there is no difficulty in it. But time is what finally decides who the rightful claimant is. The truth is that when one claims to be something, it shows clearly that he is not the right person. Only a wrong person claims to be something that he is not. Krishna does not need to claim to be Krishna, he IS Krishna. The very fact that someone claims to be Krishna shows that he is a pretender, that his being is not enough. He has to claim it to be so.

Mahavira does not claim that he is a tirthankara, he is it. But Goshalak has to lay claim to it, because he himself is in doubt. In fact, it is our feeling of inferiority that leads us to claim to be this or that. If someone claims to be a saint it clearly means that he is not a saint; he will be just the contrary to what he claims.