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History of Jainism with Special Reference to Mathurā
4. Brāhmanical ideas may have given rise to the doctrine of twenty-five
Buddhas and twenty-four jinas, and these are later additions in Buddhism and Jainism.410
5. The long duration of the careers of the first twenty-two tīrthamkaras
and the intermediate periods between them as embodied in the Jaina
tradition are unbelievable and unimaginable.411 6. The tale that the period of the first twenty-two tīrthaṁkaras covered
millions of years before Christ is unacceptable to modern historians.412 S.B. Deo writes,
... it is not possible to accept the historicity of these twenty-two tīrthařkaras, for the distances between them as well as their longevity is not only given in unbelievable numbers, but also in a descending sequence which gives the whole an appearance of a deliberate planning of mythology rather than of a sound historical chronology. 413
For instance, it is held that Pārsvanātha, the twenty-third tirthařkara,
lived 84,000 years after the death of the twenty-second tīrthařkara.414 7. Jaina scholars refer to names from the Vedas which are identical with
the names of some jinas; but it may be said that these are the names of Vedic rsis.415
8. There is a reference to a person named Rşabha in the Brāhmaṇical
literature. But he cannot be identified with the Jaina tīrthamkara of the same name, because according to the Jaina tradition 'tīrthařkara
410. OISJ, p. 8. 411. JAA, I, p. 14 fn 1; JI, p. 36; OISJ, p. 7; CHI, I, p. 153. 412. SIJA, pp. 3-4. 413. HJM, pp. 59-60. 414. Ibid., p. 60. 415. JI, p. 36.
