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THE TEACHINGS OF ARHAT PĀRÁVA AND THE
DISTINCTNESS OF HIS SECT
Sagarmal Jain
Among the Nirgrantha Tirthankaras, the historicity of Arhat Pārsva as well as of Jina Vardhamana Mahāvīra has been fully established. Inscriptional and literary evidence play an important role in establishing the historicity of a person. The earliest inscription relating to Pārsva, of the 2nd or 3rd century A.D.,' has been found from the Kankāli Țilā, Mathurā. It is inscribed on an image of Pārsva which was installed by Ghosaka, a disciple of Gani Aggahiniya of the Sthāniya-kula of the Kottiya-gana, a sub-order of friars and nuns also noticed in the hagiological list (earlier part, c. A.D. 100) of the Paryusaņā-kalpa (compiled c. A.D. 503/516). Though uninscribed, a more than life size sculpture of Pārsva (upper part mutilated)3 and a tiny figure of Pārśva as the central focus of an āyāgapatta, both stylistically datable to the period of the saka king Sodas (c. early 2nd cent. A.D.)," prove that Arhat Pārsva was venerated in, and arguably before, that period. A metal image of Pārśva in the Prince of Wales Museum, variously dated between the 2nd-1st cent. B.C. to c. 2nd cent. A.D., is one more early piece in evidence.
The inscriptional as well as the literary references to the Nirgranthas, however, are met with from c. third century B.C. The term "Niggantha" is mentioned in the inscription of Maurya Aśoka and is fairly frequently met with in the Pāli Tripitaka (usually, of course, in hateful and denegatory terms) though this cannot be taken as a conclusive evidence for the earlier church of Pärśva because the term Niggantha by then also had included the sect of Mahāvīra. In point of fact, the Pāli canon confounded a few views and teachings of these two historical Tirthankaras. As demonstrated in the early days of the Nirgranthic researches by Jacobi,8 in the Tripitaka it is said that Niggantha Nātaputta (Mahāvīra) preached căturyama-samvara, while in point of fact the preacher of the căturyāma-dharma was Arhat Pārsva and not Mahāvīra according to the Ardhamāgadhi canon of the Nirgranthas themselves.' Mahāvīra preached five-fold great vows (pañca-mahāvratas) and not the căturyāmasaṁvara.
What we today can know about the teachings of Arhat Părśva and the distinctness of his sect from that of Jina Vardhamāna is only through the available Ardhamāgadhi
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