Jain Journal 1994 07

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

Page 18

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JAIN JOURNAL: VOL XXIX, NO 1, JULY 1994
numerous tirthankaras came to appear in the Jaina sect around that time on the basis of the above data.
It is a universal phenomenon that a certain form of worship arises after the demise of the founder of a religeous school, and it is, as a matter of fact, natural that the Jainas started to make Mahavira's images as the objects of worship in due course. And as long as the object of worship was Mahāvira himself, there was no need of recording his name on the image. It was sufficient to mention that so and so donated an arhat's image, which was understood as of Mahāvīra. Majority of the old images of tirthankaras not identified with any specific tirthankaras must therefore mean Mahāvira's images. One may, however, argue that all the images of the 24 tirthankaras were already existent in the Kusana age, and the numerous unidentified tirthankara images must be those of some specific tirthankaras. But this is not likely, because tirthankara images that are produced in the naked form, by symbolizing the idealism of ahimsă, are undistinguishable one from the other without the presence of their attendants and specific marks called lanchanas. Lañchanas which are unknown to the canon emerge only in the post-canonical age. Then, the images of the 24 tirthankaras must have been built in the post-canonical age.
Mahavira received the basic doctrines of Pārsva and gave them a modern outlook in the current thoughts and language of the days. Therefore, many of Pārsva's followers must have been converted to Mahavira's camp, who then became the promotors of Jainism. As the canonical texts often touch upon the cases of converts from the Pārsvan school, for instance, Bhagavatisūtra II. 55.106-11 and V. 9.255, the Jaina school went on absorbing Parsva's followers in the course of time. And it may not be wrong to assume that the Pārsvan school was practically absorbed by the Jaina school by the end of the canonical age, when the Jainas established the lineage of the 24 tirthankaras with Parsva as the 23rd in their church history.31 Having this as their historical background, it may not be surprising if the converts from the Parsvan school and their descendants began to carve Pārsva's images about the time when the idol worship of Mahavira became prevalent. Here they must have tried to distinguish Pārsva's image from Mahavira's by adorning Parsva with a canopoy of snake-hoods. We can thus identify Pārśva alone among
31. According to Pt. Malvania, however, there still exists a caste called Saraka in West Bengal, that is suspected to belong to the Parsvan School.