Introduction to Jainism

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

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INTRODUCTION TO JAINISM
them preached and developed the same doctrine in agreement with the needs of humanity in its particular stage of development in their time. They appeared in the fourth phase (of the six) of the downward half-cycle, in which suffering became slowly dominant over joy – whereas Rishabha had come at the end of the third phase. In Hindu terms this period is comparable with the krita or satya yuga of our present cycle of human development. It was followed by ever darker eras, and finally by the present, darkest age known as kali yuga, which began with the death of the Hindu avatar Krishna. This event coincided with the 22nd Tīrthamkara, Arishtanemi (or Lord Nemi(nātħ)). Shortly after the last Tīrthamkara, Mahāvīra, a few centuries before the birth of Christ, the fifth phase of the downward cycle began , in which suffering and decadence prevail but which is not yet the darkest phase.
Of the nineteen Tīrthamkaras who came after Rishabha, not much more is generally known than the period in which they lived, and where they were born. But more details can be found in the Jain Mahāpurāna. All of them have their own specific character, and we will find individual Jains as well as temples devoted to each of them, while in the same temples the others are usually represented by icons as well.
The Indus culture, known to us from archeological finds at Harappa, Mohenjo-daro and elsewhere in present-day Pakistan, scientifically dated as 5 – 7 thousand years before present, may have covered the period from the 21s to the 22nd Tīrthamkara. The name of the Tīrthamkara Arishtanemi (Nemināth) is mentioned in the Rigveda, which might suggest that the Vedas were written after Nemināth, and the Aryans (the noble ones) arrived around that period. But according to Dr. Jyoti Prasad Jain, the Vedic Aryans with their Brahmin culture entered the territories of what is now India and Pakistan in the period of the tenth Tīrthamkara, and this culture has since became more and more dominant. At the same time the term “Aryan” in Jainism does not refer to the above-mentioned Brahmin culture, but to all people in (at