The transfer of the embryo åv⁄ra’s embryo from the

The first references to the transfer of Mahåv⁄ra’s embryo from the womb of a brahman woman called Devånandå to that of Tri¬alå, along with a reverse substitution of the embryo which was already in Tri¬alå’s womb (both carried out by the deer-headed Hari Negames⁄, the general of Indra’s army and a Jain version of a popular deity associated with childbirth), occur in the second chapter of the Åcårån≥ga and the Kalpas¨tra, that is to say, not in the oldest stratum of the biography. The reference in the ‘Exposition of Explanations’ to Mahåv⁄ra’s acknowledgement later in life of Devånandå as being his real mother clearly alludes to this aspect of the biography (Bh 9.33).