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Historical Origin & Ontological Interpretation of Arbat Pārsva's Assoc.
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earliest datable are: (1) the Indian Museum sculpture referred to above and assigned to c. late sixth century; (2) the relief panel in the Aihole cave assignable to c. A.D. 60020 and (3) the large panel in the Jaina cave (No. IV) at Bādāmi assignable to the end of the late sixth century A.D.21
Kamatha (also called Katha)-tāpasa who was reborn as Saṁvara or Sambara (Dig.), or Meghamāli (Šve.), tried hard to shake Pārsva from his trance. For seven days he poured heavy rains, made terrifying sounds and hurled rocks at him. To frighten Pārśva he conjured up lions, scorpions, terrific Vetāla-genii and ghouls who spit fire from their mouths. But the great sage, unaffected by these harassments (upasargas), remained steadfast in meditation. Dharaņa, the Indra of the Nāgakumāra gods, remembering the good turn done by Pārsva in his previous āśrama, came to his rescue. Standing behind the Jina, the Nāgendra held a canopy of his seven hoods over the Jina's head in order to protect the Lord from rains, bombardment of rocks, etc. Dharana's chief queens (four) staged dance with music before the meditating sage but the great sage was equally unmindful of the pleasure of music and dance and of the pain inflicted by Sambara or Meghamālī. His villany going fruitless, the lord of the demons relented, and bowing down before the Lord, seeking as he did the Jina's forgiveness, returned with remorse to his celestial abode. It is said that Meghamālī had so much flooded the area that the water level rose up to the tip of the nose of Pārsva and that Dharanendra, wrapping his coils all around the body of Pārsva and holding the hoods as a canopy over the sage's head, had lifted up the body of Pārśva above water.
According to both sects, the Jina Pārsvanātha was dark-blue in complexion and had the snake as his cognizance, lāñchana. Hemacandrācārya as well as Ašādhara (c. 2nd quarter of the 13th cent. A.D.) have made it clear that the lāñchanas are (the symbols on) the dhvajas of the Jinas. Thus the snake was originally the heraldic sign of Pārsvanātha. Does it suggest Pārsvanātha's intimate association with the race or tribe that had the Nāga as its totem or symbol? Or, did Pārsva himself belong to the Nāga race or tribe? According to the Svetāmbara tradition, the Jina was called Pārsva because his mother had seen, in dream, a cobra by her side (Pārsva) during the period of confinement.22
When Pārsva grew up, he once saw an ascetic (tāpasa), variously called Katha, Kadha, or Kamatha, practicing penance called pañcāgni-tapa, by burning logs of wood in four groups in four directions around him and the fifth fire being the scorching sun above. In one of the logs was a pair of snakes which was being burnt alive. Pārśva rescued the snakes and remonstrated the ascetic who was no other
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