The first part opens with a prince named Vimalavahana who is overcome by an intense feeling of renunciation upon beholding a few strands of gray hairs on his cheek. The grey hair remind him of the transitoriness of life and the supreme power and inevitability of death. He takes to a life of meditation and is born as a Dev in one of the heavens. In his subsequent birth he becomes Ajithanatha, the king of Ayodhya. The customary fivefold auspicious in the life of a Thirthankara have been described at great length by Ranna with his usual gusts and devotion and piety. He was subject to intense emotional disturbances and did not know how to control them except by giving them to eloquent expression in words.
