Jain Siddhant Bhaskar

SR No.: 529551
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Siddhant Bhavan
Publisher: Jain Siddhant Bhavan
Total Pages: 417
Language: Hindi
Classification: Magazine, India_Jain Siddhant Bhaskar, & India
File Size: 10 MB

Page 171

20
JAINA ANTIQUARY.
[Vol. I
their opinions, though honest, were not based on sound knowledge and so could not stay long. Soon after came Prof. Jacobi in the field and studied Jaina Canonical books along with the Buddhist Suttas and he proclaimed for the first time the authenticity of Jainism as an independent and pre-Buddhistic religion?. He however, regarded Parsva as an historical person and founder of Jainsim quite wonderfully; but at the very time he had to remark also that :
" But there is nothing to prove that Parsva was the founder of
Jainism. Jaina tradition is unanimous in making Rish abba, the first Tirthankara ( as its founder )....... There may be something historical in the tradition which make him the First Tirthankara'."
Unfortunately, inspite of this clear statement that no evidence is available to displace Jaina tradition of the first Tirthankara as its founder in this cycle of time, the queer view has come to be held that Parsva is the founder of Jainism. The main reason for the prevalance of this view is perhaps the hoary antiquity of Rishabhadeva, the first Tirthankara, which makes it not an easy task to believe the tradition at all. His life time goes most anterior to that of Rama and Lakshamana and the history of India has been also assumed to begin with the 8th, or 10th. century B.C. But how this assumption can be relied upon now, when the literary and moreover epigraphical evidence is available to push back the beginning period of the ancient history of India not only by decades but by centuries? The Jaina and Buddhistic literatures of the Mauryan period and the antiquities of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa cannot be overlooked in this respect. Recently it has been pointed out by Prof. Pran Nath of the Hindu University, Benares, that a copper-plate grant belonging to the period of Babylonian ascension mentions the name of Nemi, the 22nd. Tirthankara of the Jainas*. It means that the real history of India and the beginning of Jainism go back anterior to the 10th. century B.C.
Under the circumstances, sound scholarship demands a review of the ancient traditions of our Puranas with more reliability, and, as such, we cannot be justified in passing the great personality of Rishabha as a myth only, and proclaiming Parsva as the founder of Jainism! Rather
1. Jaina Sutras, 3. B. E.XLV, Intro : p. XXI. f f. 2. Indian Antiquary, vol. IX p. 163.
*" Dr. Pran Nath, Professor of the Hindu University, Benares, has been able to decipher the copper-plate grant of Emperor Nebuchandneyyar I (Circa 1140 B. C.) or II (Circa 600 B.C.) of Babylon, found recently in Kathiawad. The inscription is of great historical value......... It may go a long way in proving the antiquity of the Jaipa religion, since the name of Nomi appears in the inscription."-Times of India, 19th March 1935, p. 9.