Introduction to Jainism

Author(s): Rudi Jansma, Sneh Rani Jain
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

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INTRODUCTION TO JAINISM
according to karmic law – cause us more and more suffering and deeper ignorance. At the moment there is still a little bit of joy, but the real misery of this cycles still lies ahead of us according to Jainism. This darkest period, which will last 21,000 years, is however no more than the blink of an eye within the cycle as a whole, which lasts millions of years at least. There is always a possibility of choosing the path towards self-liberation, so that one is no longer subject to the sufferings of this cycle at all. When we have reached the deepest point, the upward cycle – or serpent as they call it - begins, until we finally live again in a world of great bliss. That we will not get stuck in darkness and ignorance forever is due to the fact that many as yet ungerminated karmic seeds of a more positive nature which have been sown by us in the past will also come into bloom. But if we have not managed to liberate ourselves before the joyful end of the cycle, the whole sequence of events starts all over again, according to the Jains.
Though we can only pursue our path individually and by our own effort, humankind has always been assisted throughout history, and this assistance has always had a close association with the phase in which the cycle finds itself. In the first psychological half of the downward cycle, no Tīrthamkaras had yet been born on earth. The first Tīrthamkara, known as the original Lord, Ādinātha, whose name was Rishabha, came just before the midpoint the downward half-cycle, when joy and suffering were almost in balance. A total of 24 Tīrthamkaras were to appear, as is the case in every downward half-cycle (as well as in the upward half-cycle). All of them taught the same spiritual doctrine, but they were also children of their time who played a role of major importance and gave an impulse to human culture. The last of the 24 Tīrthamkaras in our downward half-cycle was Mahāvīra, a historic personality living about 2500 years ago, and who was a senior contemporary of Buddha. In the meantime we have entered a period which is so dark from a spiritual point of view that the Tīrthamkaras and Buddhas can