Jain Journal 1979 01

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 30

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JAIN JOURNAL
These two institutions attained a general supremacy in the Jaina community in India at different ages preceding our own because they offered some religious solutions for the chief religious problems of the Jainas with which those ages had been confronted. Their enthronment signified the completion of the ages which had sought and found salvation in them; their survival bears witness to the creative power of the Tirthankaras and the Jainacaryas, and the Jainas have grown up under their shadow. In this religious system and monastic order the Jainas still like and move and have their being and the power of these two inherited institutions over their religious life is reflected in the hold which they possess over their religious concepts and ideas, thought and imaginations.
History of evolution of Jaina Sangha requires to be comprised of sustained chronicle of its tradition, but it is not possible to determine the historicity of the successive chronological order of Jaina Sangha from the time of Rsabhadeva, the first Tirthankara up to that of Mahavira on the basis of Agamic references in the absence of genuine contemporary corroborative historical evidences regarding the historical existence of the Tirthankaras from Ajitanatha to Aristanemi except merely placing the twentyfour Tirthankaras in successive order according to the Jaina tradition.
A particular stage of Jaina Sangha is marked by certain religious achievement, besides the hopes and aspirations which it sought to realize for its followers. Such hopes and aspirations receding to the past inspire the religious achievements with a halo about the first originator of Jainadharma and Sangha-Rsabhadeva. The historicity of this first Tirthankara may be established with some evidences furnished by the Rgveda and the Bhāgavata purāna and the Vatarasana Munis mentioned in the Rgveda can definitely be identified with the Nirgranthas referred to in the Nyāyamañjari of Jayanta Bhatta. The question arises how to fill up the gap of history of evolution of Jaina Sangha in between the period of Ajitanatha and that of Aristanemi if Rsabhadeva is accepted as a historical personage. The historicity of Parsvanatha and Mahavira has been established by the historians with a critical study of genuine historical evidences. An idea can be formed about the evolution of Jaina Sangha in the periods of Parsvanatha and Mahavira, but no definite idea can be formed about the real position of it during the periods of all the Tirthankaras on the basis of the stereotyped traditional account of it as given in the present Agamas. A short account of some post-Mahaviran Jaina monastic orders along with their respective branches under the spiritual leadership of their respective Acaryas is presented by the Kalpasūtra Sthavirāvali and the Nandisutra Pattāvali. The historical existence of such