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Dr. Charlotte Krause : Her Life & Literature
that the whole Manuşya-loka has just now 20 Tīrthankaras, the minimum number possibles, generally designated as the 20 ‘Viharamāņas'. One of them is the lord Sīmandhara, imagined to exist in the Aparavideha of Jambū-dvipa, to whom one of the stavanas published below is addressed.
The maximum number of simultaneously existing Tīrthankaras, on the other hand, is 170. It is reached at periods when there is one Tīrtharkara 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".
Best known among the Tīrtharkaras of all the 15 ‘Karmabhūmis', past, present, and future ones, is naturally the past 'Caturviṁsatikā' of the world in which we live, i.e., those 24 ones who appeared during the past two 'Arās' of the present 'Avasarpiņi' in the 'Bharata-kşetra' of Jambū-dvīpa. They are : 1. Rşabha ( Ādinātha ), 2. Ajita, 3. Sambhava, 4. Abhinandana, 5. Sumati, 6. Padmaprabha, 7. Supārsva, 8. Candraprabha, 9. Suvidhi ( Puspadanta ), 10. Šītala, 11. Śreyāṁsa, 12. Vāsupūjya, 13. Vimala, 14. Ananta, 15. Dharma, 16. Šānti, 17. Kunthu, 18. Ara, 19. Malli, 20. Munisuvrata, 21. Nami, 22. Aristanemi ( Neminātha ), 23. Pārsvanātha, 24. Mahāvīra ( Vīra or Vardhamāna ). Out of them, the 1st, the 17th, the 18th, the 20th, the 21st, the 23rd and the 24th are referred to in the hymns published in the volume.
The main data which Jaina tradition has handed down with regard to this group of Tīrtharikaras, have been presented in poetical form by Somatilaka Sūri in his "Saptati-śatasthāna-prakarana', composed in V.S. 1387". As the name indicates, these data are 170 in number. Some of them are mentioned in our stotras too ( sometimes slightly deviating ). Such data are, e.g. :
(1) The ‘Kalyāņa-pañcaka', i.e., the dates of the five main
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