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Antiquity of Jainism :: 19
produced, one after the other, fourteen law-givers or preliminary guides of human beings known as the Kulakaras or Manus. In the fourth age, the conditions greatly deteriorated since nature was not benevolent as before and conflicts among men had begun to appear and the Kulakaras, in succession, as the earliest leaders of men, tried to improve the conditions in their own simple ways.
In the succession of fourteen Kulakaras or Manus the 14th Manu, by name Nābhirāya, and his wife Marudevi gave birth to Rşabha or Ādinātha who later on became the first Tīrtharkara or expounder of Jaina religion. This Lord Rşabha is considered as the harbinger of human civilization because he inaugurated the karma-bhūmi (the age of action); founded the social institutions of marriage, family, law, justice, state, etc., taught mankind the cultivation of land, different arts and crafts, reading, writing and arithmetic; built villages, towns and cities; and in short, pioneered the different kinds of activities with a view to provide a new kind of social order meant for increasing the welfare of human beings. Lord Rşabha had two daughters and one hundred sons. After guiding human beings for a considerable period of time, Lord Rşabha abdicated his temporal powers in favour of his eldest son, Bharata, who in course of time, became the Chakravarti, i.e., Paramount sovereign of this country; led a life of complete renunciation, got kevala-jñāna, i.e., supreme knowledge, preached the religion of ahiṁsā, became the first prophet of salvation and in the end attained nirvāṇa, i.e., liberation at Mount Kailāśa.
After Lord Rşabha, the first Tirtharkara, there was a succession of 23 other Tīrtharkaras, who came one after the other at intervals varying in duration. In this way, the Jaina tradition of 24 Tirthankaras was established in the course of historical times beginning from the first Tīrthankara Lord Rsabha and ending with the 24th Tirtharikara Lord Mahāvira.
Thus it is now an accepted fact that Mahāvira (599-527 B.C.) was the last Tirtharikara or prophet of Jaina religion and that he preached the religion which was promulgated in the
