History of Jaina Monachism

Author(s): S B Deo
Publisher: Deccan College Research Institute

Page 64

HISTORY OF JAINA MONACHISM
59 rated by historical evidence.3 Over and above these considerations, the gap that the Jainas put between Mahāvīra and Rşabha is fabulously long. The Successors of Rşabha:
Twenty three Tirthankaras are supposed to have followed Rşabha. As no historical evidence whatever, has come forward to prove their historicity we may dismiss them, except the last two, as the products of tradition the antiquity of which, however, may be said to go back to a couple of centuries prior to the Christian era as attested by the Mathurā inscriptions.
It will, however, be not out of place here, to see what the non-Jaina and Jaina traditions have to say about a few among them.
The Jaina tradition makes all these Tīrthankaras as the product of pure Kshatriya race. Another point regarding them is the difference of opinion about the nineteenth Tirthankara-Mallīwho according to the Svetāṁbaras was a woman, to which the Digambaras do not agree.
We have already noted the Brāhmanical references regarding Rşabha. Along with Rşabha, some other Tirthankaras are also referred to. For instance, the Bhāgavata Purāņa mentions Sumati. About him it is said that he "will be irreligiously worshipped by some infidels as a divinity" 5 On this account, it may be that this Sumati was the fifth Tīrthankara who was the son of Bharata.
Another Tīrthankara called Ariştanemi (the 22nd in the list), is connected with the Kșshna legend.
Inspite of such references and the traditional accounts about them, it is not possible to accept the historicity of these twenty-three Tirthankaras, for the distances between them as well as their longevity is not only given
3. "But what value belongs to these myths of the Purāņas about Rşabha ... it is wholly impossible to decide"-JACOBI, I.A., Vol. IX, p. 163; Citing the authority of the Mathură Inscriptions, or of the antiquities found at Dhārāśiva (Hyd.), and Dhank (Kathiawad), as Shree K. P. JAIN does in J. A. IV, No. 3, p. 90, also does not seem convincing about the historicity of Rşabha.
4. Nāyā, Chapt. 8. 5. WILSON, Vishnu-Purāna, p. 164n.
6. Shree K, P. JAIN makes out a case in favour of the historicity of Ariştanemi on two grounds: (i) As the historicity of Krshna is admitted, the same 'privilege' cannot be denied to Ariştanemi. (ii) On the basis of a certain grant found in Kathiawad, published in the Times of India of 19th March 1935, p. 9, and deciphered by Dr. Prān NAIH, he says that this grant belonging to king Nebachandnezaar I (c. 1140 B.C.) or II (c. 600 B.C.) of Babylon mentioning Nemi, goes to prove his antiquity. (J.A. IV, lii, pp, 89-90). It may be noted in this case that the tentative date neither for Krshna nor for the king can as yet be fixed.