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THE HISTORICAL ORIGIN AND ONTOLOGICAL
INTERPRETATION OF ARHAT PĀRSVA'S ASSOCIATION WITH DHARANENDRA
U.P. Shah
Arhat Pārsva-Jina Pārsvanātha-is reported in the "Jina-caritra” of the Paryusanakalpa (PK) (C. A.D. 503/516) to have flourished 250 years before the nirvana of Mahāvīra. He is reported there to have spent his first 30 years as a layman and after that led the life of an ascetic for 70 years and attained nirvāṇa on Mt. Sammeta. According to the PK (149 ff), Pārsva was born as a prince, as son of king Aśvasena and queen Vāmādevi in the city of Vārāṇasi. No explanation is given there for the appellation Pārsva, nor there is any mention of a snake by the side of the queen mother in her dream or in waking state as recorded in the medieval works of the Northern Nirgrantha tradition which purport to deal with his (mostly legendary) biography. Nor Pārsva's association with Dharanendra is referred to in the PK. According to the PK (159), “The bhagavān (Arhat Pārsva) passed 83 day-nights in meditation on Self on the way to liberation ...... on the 84th day-night, ..... under the dhätakı-tree, ....... while in meditation, he attained the total cognition and conation, kevala." The austerities practiced and the hardships suffered by Mahāvīra and Pārśva are described in almost identical terms and there is nothing in the PK account indicative of the episode of Kamatha who had attempted to obstruct Pārśva in meditation. (Pārśva's austerities before his attaining Kevalajñāna are of course mentioned therein, vide 157-159.)
Pārśva was an historical personage; but, as Schubring puts it, “what else we are told of him in Jinac. 149 f. is merely a copy of Mahāvīra's biography with the exception that Pāsa is said to have been born in Benares and to have died on Sammeya mountain in Bihar. Nor do we learn anything of importance of Pāsa's role from Nayādb. II.1, and Puppha. 1.3. (What in Isibhās. 31 is given as his utterance has no individual character). But he is attested as a historic personality by other passages in rendering his teaching and reporting on his followers. Mahāvīra's parents are said to have belonged to Pāsa's lay-followers (Pasāvaccijjā samanovāsagā, Ayara., II.15.16.) and in his life-time — as is confirmed by the SammaññaphalaSutta of the Digha-Nikāya - there have been teachers (P. ijā therā bhagavanto, Viy. 134b., 247b.) and monks (anagāra, Viy. 99a, 439a) in accordance with Pāsa's
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