Doctrine of Jainas

Author(s): Walther Shubring, Wolfgang Beurlen
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

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DOCTRINE OF THE JAINAS $ 16 JACOBI cxprcsscd thc idcal that among the Titthagara such men were admitted who werc dcar to those communities that had attached themselves to Mahavira This would have its counterpart on a larger scalc in thc structure of thc Hindu pantheon Provided that Mahāvira's community rcally gaincd in strength by the incorporation of wholc bodics of sccts, we must, however, hear in mind that thc Titthagara arc scparated from each other by “astronomical figures”, whcrcas those persons must have lived more or less distinctly in the memory of the contcmporaries As is the case with so many characters of the Brahman legends we can neither prove nor can we definitely dispute the assertion that the preachers of salvation relicon individual persons The lowest rungs of the Titthagara ladder lcading from primeval times up to the present are more or less clcarly visiblc in thc light of history 2 Yet we would be more correct in saying that the ladder reaching from an historically attested cxpcricncc on dogmatic grounds far up into the past is still hit by this light at a point not far from its foot The question to be asked is how far up this is the case We meet Arıtthanemı in Nāya 5, Antag 1-5, Vanhid ; Utt 22 He is placed within thc Krsna circle as the brother-in-law of Kamsa, the scenc is Dvāravati (Bārarai) In spite of his being more frequently referred to than his precursors, yet Arıtthanemi-he lived to the age of a thousand vcars-15 by no means historically more tangible than they are. The only thing to be advanced might be that in the year of Mahāvira's Nirvāna he had been dead for 84,000 years (Jinac 1821 ), because it should be remembered that the figure of 84 or either of its plurals frequently appear with the Jains and clscwhere where they only fail to give precise details for something founded on fact Acc to Jinac 184 Arıtthanemi's precursor, Nami, died half a million years back, and as is the case with all other figures in the lives of the Jinas, so these intervals, too, increase into the gigantic br retrogradation Pāsa, however, acc to Jinac 168 f died 250
1 SBC 45 XXXII
2 By discussing this problem Chimanlal J SHAH starts his book on Jainism in North India 800 BC-326 AD LO 1932 Revicw by the AUTHOR in OLZ 1934, col 126-128