Comprehensive History Of Jainism

Author(s): Aseem Kumar Chatterjee
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt Ltd

Page 37

CHAPTER II
Pārsvanātha
The penultimate Jaina Tīrthaṁkara Pārśva was, in all probability, the real founder of Jainism. The Kalpasūtra (149–69)' provides a brief history of his life, but even this brief account, like all other Jaina writings, is full of stereotyped words and sentences. According to this account, he was the son of Aśvasena, king of Vārāṇasī, by his wife Vāmā. Charpentier writing in the Cambridge History of India? observes that ‘no such person as Aśvasena is known from Brāhmaṇa records to have existed'. We therefore need not accept the Jaina account that Aśvasena was really a king of Kāśi. He probably belonged to an aristocratic Ksatriya family; let us not forget that the Jainas have uniformly depicted all their Tīrthamkaras as kings' sons. The modern historian cannot help condemning this affected attitude of the early Jaina canonical authors. This form of vanity is also discernible in the writings of the Buddhists, who leave no stone unturned to prove that their founder really belonged to the most august and aristocratic family of those times. It is, therefore, quite reasonable to infer that Pārsva, like the Buddha or Mahāvīra, was a scion of a well-to-do Kșatriya family.
The most significant fact about Pārsva is however that he belonged to Vārāṇasī, the cultural and religious centre of India from time immemorial. As a citizen of this great city, he probably came into contact with some men of vision. That even the Ksatriyas of this city were men of learning and intuition is testified to by the fact that king Ajātaśatru, lauded in the Upanișadic texts,' is described as belonging to this city. He (not to be confused with his Buddhist namesake) is delineated as expounding to Dụpta Bālāki Gārgya, a Brahmin ācārya, the real nature of ātman. His son Bhadrasena Ajātasatrava too, was a man of wisdom and a rival of the great Uddālaka.” It is little wonder then that Pārśva, as a scion of an aristocatic family of this marvellous metropolis, should have received some serious training in religion and philosophy in early youth. We are told that he led the householder's life up to the age of 30 and then renounced