Tulsi Prajna 2005 04

SR No.: 524623
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Shanta Jain, Jagatram Bhattacharya
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
Publication Year: 2005
Total Pages: 122
Language: Hindi
Classification: Magazine, India_Tulsi Prajna, & India
File Size: 6 MB

Page 98

(3) We have also tried to make it clear that the doctrines of Pārsvanātha constituted the immediate background of the later Jainism. Mahāvīra only followed in the footsteps of his eminent predecessor and raised a grand superstructure on the foundations laid down by Parsvanātha.
(4) Above all, it has become evident that Jainism was not a new phenomenon in the history of Indian religion of the sixth century B.C., as is popularly suposed. The Jaina traditional accounts are quite justified in carrying back the origin of their religion to the previous Tirthamkaras, at least as far as Pārsvanātha, the twenty-third of them, is concerned.
There seems to be no denying the fact that this twenty-third Tīrthamkara was a historical personage and was no doubt one of the most powerful religious teachers who fought against the aggressive Brahmanism of the period as early as the ninth century B.C. He persisted in carrying out his mission with every possible care and unflinching courage. He came as a liberator of the depressed and down-trodden and passed away with laurels on his crown leaving his work to be continued by his successors to perfection.
References : 1. The Paurānic belief is that whenever the religion undergoes a decadence
whenever then become sinful, an Avatāre or Incarnation of the god comes down for setting everything right. The conception of a Tirthamkara, though it does not coincide with this, is however similar to that of an Avatāra. A Tīrthamkara, is also believed to appear when the religion becomes decadent. The difference is that while an Avatāra is considered as in Incarnation the god and as such comes down with divine qualities, a Tirthamkara is a human being who attains perfection and divine qualities
by virtue of his pious acts like a samyak Ambuddha of the Buddhists. 2. Bühler. On the India Sect of the Jainas (Ed. Burgess), pp. 66 ff. 3. For the period of each Tīrthankaras, cf. Stevenson, The Heart of Jainism,
pp. 50 ff. It is a noteworthy fact that all the Jinas are attributed to the Ikshvāku family with the exceptios of Munisuvrata and Neminātha who were of the Harivarśa race. As such many of them have been imnortalised in the Ramayana, the Mahābhārat and the Puranas, as ardent exponents
of Hinduism. 5. H.C. Raychaudhuri, Early History of the Vaisṇava Sect (Calcutta
University). 6. Cf. Jacobi, Jaina Sūtra, Pt. I (SBE)
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