Arhat Parshva and Dharnendra Nexus

SR No.: 002108
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: M A Dhaky
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1997
Total Pages: 204
Language: English, Hindi
Classification: Book_English, Articles, History, Art, E000, & E001
File Size: 8 MB

Page 24

Arhat Pārsva and Dharanendra Nexus
and bhāva, is also the gift of Pārsva. As a final note, by way of inference, it may be stated that the rite of sallekhanā also comes from him; for he had passed away on the Sammeda Hills, assumably by that rite which apparently had initiated that practice, known and followed till now.
IV
The upsarga-episode of Arhat Pārsva has been nowhere mentioned in the āgamas, not even in the agamic commentarial literature. The episode, of course, is much too well-known, indeed needing no detailed description in the present context.34 Briefly speaking, when Pārsva, after renunciation of worldly life was meditating (on the outskirts of Ahicchatrā35), his past enemy, the tāpasa-ascetic Kamatha, who after his death was reborn as a vyantara demi-god called Meghamālī, conjured up a cloud burst, the fiercely gathering waters were intended to drown the Jina. At this juncture Nāgendra Dharana, to whom Pārsva had shown compassion in the former's previous birth as snake, appeared on the scene, lifted up the Jina from the waters, and protectively spread his five-hooded head as a canopy over him. The myth, which is available in a few versions (differing in detail and intensity of phenomenon) in the pre-medieval and medieval Nirgrantha narrative literature as well as in the sculptural representations, believably had been created for explaining away, in a dramatic manner, the intriguing association of Dharanendra with Pārsva, concretely evidenced. as it is from at least the 1st century B.C.-A.D. The dynamic characters involved in the myth are Kamatha and Nāgendra; Pārsva, lost in deep contemplation, was a neutral figure. The selection of Ahicchatrā as a site of the event in some versions of the myth was of course for reinforcing the idea 'Ahi' or serpent and chhatrā' canopied (by the 'Ahi'). The medieval writers obviously were not aware that the real ancient appellation of the town was 'Adhicchatrā'. From its Prāksta form 'Ahicchattā', by back formation, it was rerendered in Sanskrit as 'Ahicchatrā' which altered the connotation.36
As for Kamatha, the earliest reference to him (without any allusion to the upsargaepisode) is in the Paryanta-ürādhana, 37 probably a pre-medieval Svetāmbara work incorporating several verses which formally, stylistically, and by content seem to be of the seventh-eighth century. The relevant verse says that, thanks to anaśanamaraņa (suspension of aliment unto death), Tāmali was reborn as Iśānendra, bālatapasvī Pūrana became Camara (Camarendra in the nether world), and Kamatha became Kamathāsura, probably a godling in the asura-kumāra or demon class of beings who are believed to be residing in the subterranean quarters. Since Kamathāsura has no other relevance except in the upsarga-episode, it may be