The Prince Who Would Not Tremble

The opening of the story

In the palace at Kshatriyakund a boy was growing up whom everyone watched. Prince Vardhaman was gentle with the servants and kind to every creature in the palace gardens, and he was never in a hurry. Acharya Hemachandra says that gods and asuras followed him about like rivals in devotion, and that his eyes seemed to rain nectar on whatever they rested on. There was a stillness about him that made grown men lower their voices when he came into a room. His mother noticed something else. In all his short life she had never once seen him afraid.

The Kalpa Sutra says that his parents named him Vardhaman, and that the gods gave him a second name, because he would stand firm in the midst of dangers and fears. Hemachandra tells us which of the gods spoke it first. When the boy had been named on earth, Indra spoke of him in his council hall in the first heaven, Saudharma. He said to the gods around him, "This child will not tremble, even before the greatest terrors. Let him be called the Great Hero." So the gods had a name for the prince of Kshatriyakund that his own people had not yet learned. It is the name the whole world says now with folded hands: Bhagwan Mahavir.