Heart of Jainism

Author(s): Mrs Sinclair Stevenson
Publisher: Mrs Sinclair Stevenson

Page 77

51
AND DISCIPLES fourth; but the Jaina have legends regarding each one of their predecessors.
The first Tirthankara was born when the world had 1. Ķişapassed out of its happiest stage and was in the era of brandina Suşama Duşama. A Rajput king had a little son born to nātha. him, whom his mother called Rişabhadeva, because in her dream she had seen a bull (riṣabha) coming towards her. Rişabhadeva (also called Ādinātha) taught men seventy-two arts and women sixty-four, for these have only to be skilled in domestic and not in literary and industrial crafts; but his great glory lies in the fact that he first taught men the Jaina faith. He lived for eighty-four lakhs of pūrva of time, of which he spent only one lakh of pūrva as an ascetic. Rişabhadeva had one hundred sons (amongst whom was the famous king Bharata); their height was five hundred bow-shots. This first Tirthankara attained mokşa from Aştāpada (or Kailāsa) in the modern Himālayas.
The world grew steadily worse, and in fifty lakhs of crores 2. Ajitaof sāgara of time the next Tirthankara, Ajitanātha, was nātha. born in Ayodhyā. After his birth all his father's enemies were conquered (jita), hence his name, the invincible one'. He was born in the period called Duşama Suşama, and all the remaining Tirthankara were born in the same period. His sign, which one sees on all his images in the temples, is an elephant. During his life he himself earned the title of Victorious, for he was so devout an ascetic that he was beaten by none in performing austerities. He attained mokşa together with a thousand other Sådhus.
After thirty more lakhs of crores of sāgara Sambhava. 3. Samnātha, the third Tirthankara, was born in Srāvastī of Rajput bhava
nātha. arents. The king his father had been distressed to see the way his dominions were ravaged by plague and famine, but when he heard the good news of the boy's birth, he felt there was a chance (sambhava) of better times coming, hence the boy's name. He too was able to persuade a thousand
1 Otherwise: Suşama Duhşamā.