Ancient Jaina Hymns

Author(s): Charlotte Krause
Publisher: Oriental Institute

Page 19

INTRODUCTION
vatas, 5 Hari-kşetras, 5 Devakurus, 5 Uttarakurus, 5 Ramyaka-kşetras, and 5 Hairaṇyakas) with 5 Merus, each with a separate system of suns, moons and other heavenly bodies'.
We are supposed to live in the Bharata-kşetra of Jambu-dvīpa in the 3rd millennium of the 5th “Ara” of an Avasarpiņi, the last Tīrthankara of which latter, Mahāvīra, expired roughly two and a half millennia ago. This “Ara” is assumed to have started 3 years and 81 months after Mahāvīra's Nirvāņa. At present, not only Bharata, but also Airāvata is believed to be without a Tīrthankara, while four Tirthankaras exist in Mahāvideha. Exactly the same holds good for the other two ring-worlds outside Jambu-dvipa, so that the whole Manuşya-loka has just now 20 Tīrthankaras, the minimum number possible”, generally designated as the 20 “Viharamānas.” One of them is the Lord Sīmandhara, imagined to exist in the Aparavideha of Jambu-dvipa, to whom one of the stavanas published below is addressed.
The maximum number of simultaneously existing Tīrthaikaras, on the other hand, is 170. It is reached at periods when there is one Tīrthankara in each of the 32 “Vijayas" of each of the 5 Mahāvidehas, and one in each of the 5 Bharatas and the 5 Airāvatas. This figure is considered not only as sacred, but as endowed with magical potentialities, and plays an important part in Jaina-Tantra-Šāstra, as exemplified by the popular “Tijayapahutta”-stotra, which is one of the “Smaraņas” of the Svetāmbaras supposed to be daily recited*.
(1 Tattv. III, 12-13.
(2) Vide Pravac., Dvāra 13, st. 327 (where, as an alternative, 10 is also given as the minimum number).
(3) Pravac. loc. cit. (4) Pañcaprat., Bh., p. 431 and elsewhere.