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UNDERSTANDING JAIN RELIGION IN A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE *
Satya RANJAN BANERJEE
I normally study any kind of religion from a historical point of view, because, I believe, if you understand the history of any religion, you would be able to get a better appreciation of any religion whatsoever. So is the case with Jainism. Jainism is a very old religion. There were 24 Tirthankars in Jainism. The first was known as Ādinātha or Rşabhadeva and the 24th Tirthankara was Bhagavān Mahāvīra. The period of Mahāvira is established as the 6th century B.C (599-527B.C). Mahāvīra lived for 72 years. During these 72 years Mahāvīra had brought about some revolutionary changes in the then society of India. This is a very important period in history as it was during this period that Zoroastrianism also developed in Iran. Their original language was called Avestan. This language was not known to a lot of people before the 18th century when the Avestan literature was deciphered and we came to know the contents of the text. Again it was the period of Pythagorus (6th/5th century B.C.) in Greece who started his philosophy of life in Greece around the same period. In China too it was the period when Lao-tse (6th century B.C.) developed Taoism, and Confucius (551-478 B.C.) preached his doctrines of morality known as Confucianism. In India the period saw
A revised, rearranged and augmented version of the lecture delivered on the 12th of December 2002 at the instance of Jain Vishva Bharati Institute, Ladnun, under the scheme of Understanding Religions.
