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in other books.
What Mahavira says in his statement is fiction, absolute fiction. And what will a man of eighty-five years old be doing in a prostitute's home? Just think of the absurdity of it. And who is this prostitute -- the name is not given -- so that she can be asked? Is there any eyewitness who saw his body being dragged? There is none. And it was the greatest city of those days: Vaishali, in Bihar, where Makkhali Gosal died. And the whole city was composed of his followers. Even the king was his follower; the king was one of the four persons carrying his body on his shoulders. So it is absolutely wrong and absolutely a lie -- and from a man like Mahavira who is talking about truth, nonviolence, love!
That's why I say all these people -- whether they call themselves messiahs, or they call themselves paigambaras or they call themselves tirthankaras -- are somehow still rooted in the ego... very sophisticated, very polished, and very subtle, so that unless you have X-ray eyes, you cannot penetrate and see the ego.
Mohammedans have been asking me, "Are you a paigambara?" That is their word for messiah.... Mohammed was an absolutely illiterate man, and the Koran, in which his sayings are collected, is ninety-nine percent rubbish. You can just open the book anywhere and read it, and you will be convinced of what I am saying. I am not saying on a certain page -- anywhere. You just open the book accidentally, read the page and you will be convinced of what I am saying.
Whatsoever one percent truth there is here and there in the Koran is not Mohammed's. It is just ordinary, ancient wisdom that uneducated people collect easily -- more easily than the educated people, because educated people have far better sources of information -- books, libraries, universities, scholars. The uneducated, simply by hearing the old people, collect a few words of wisdom here and there. And those words are significant, because for thousands of years they have been tested and found somehow true. So it is the wisdom of the ages that is scattered here and there; otherwise, it is the most ordinary book possible in the world.
Mohammedans have been asking
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