Introduction to Jainism

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

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HISTORY AND TĪRTHAMKARAS
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limited to particular habitats, and thus were less threatening to people. Later, people were inspired to live in separate communities, each of which had their own boundaries, but which co-existed peacefully. Perhaps this is how the tribal form of society was born, succeeding more nomadic periods. In the next stage smaller units were formed, notably families, and regulated attention and care for children were developed. A Kulankara appeared who taught the people to take care of their children. Humanity was told how to build ships and navigate on rivers, and to make and use household utensils. Later still the people were instructed to avoid incest and told that it would be better to marry outside one's own family. Until then it was customary for brothers and sisters to form couples.
The last and seventh or fourteenth Kulankara' of this downward half-cycle was Nabhirāja, who taught how to distinguish between different kinds of fruits - healthy ones and poisonous ones. Does this mean that the people knew the difference instinctively until then? It was also he who instructed us how to make clay pots.
Nabhirāja must have been an extraordinary and influential personality. He was an example of spiritual wealth and beauty. He was an inspirer and supporter of artistic development. He was the "grandson” of Pratiśruti, who was also the first Manu, from the essence of which all other Manus sprang. Manus are those who open and close evolutionary cycles. Nabhirāja was (even though there had been a number of Manus in between the son of the son of the original Manu who initiated collective humanity, which means that he represents the human development of a minor cycle within a larger cycle. Because he was the last one of a series of seven (or fourteen), he was also the one who closed a larger cycle, it seems.' After this preceding phase of human evolution the Tīrthamkaras could appear on the scene and do their work. People had already learned to work for themselves, physically as well as mentally; the earth had become a “work planet.”10 From then on, humans could not