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Ancient Jaina Hymns
331
Padmāvatī. There is, however, no indication which would confirm this as a general principle. Nor is the idea of the same scholar tenable that originally, every Yaksa was the leader of the disciples of his resp. Tīrthankara, and each Yakşiņi his first female convert27. The very life-story of Pārśva suffices to disprove this, as he was attended by Dharana and Padmāvatī before he attained omniscience and began his teaching activity.
Over and above the 170 stereotyped data, out of which the above ones have been culled, tradition has handed down life-stories and legends of those 24 Tīrthankaras. Most of the latter are found collected in Hemacandra Sūri's famous compendium 'Trişastisalākāpuruşa-carita'. It is seen that the details available for the majority of those Tīrthankaras are scanty, while there are elaborate biographies of a few of them, who enjoy special popularity. Their lives, including previous existences, form also the subjects of individual monographs in Saṁskṛta, Prāksta, Apabhramsa and Gujarāti. Ādinātha, Munisuvrata, Pārsvanātha, and Mahāvīra, to whom some of the hymns published below are dedicated, belong to that category.
Much less attention than to this last Caturvimśatikā of our Bharatakşetra has naturally been paid to the 24 Tīrthankaras who were contemporaneous with them in Airāvata. Their names, however, are handed down28. The same must be stated with regard to the Caturviṁsatikās who appeared previous to the latter, i.e., in the last Utsarpiņi both in Bharata?' and Airāvatao. It seems that a certain tradition exists regarding the five 'Kalyāņakas' of those three groups.31.
List of the names of the Tīrtharkara-caturvimśatikās destined to appear in Bharata?? and Airāvata?the coming Utsarpiņi are likewise handed down. These future Tīrthankaras are of somewhat stronger interest, since they are linked up with the past by certain predictions found in the Sacred Literature with regard to those personalities in whom they were once incarnated. Thus, Sulasā, a
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