Jain Spirit 2004 10 No 20

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 74

72
HISTORY
ROYAL CITIZEN
OF VARANASI
ASIM KUMAR CHATTERJEE GIVES A SCHOLARLY ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE OF THE TWENTY-THIRD TIRTHANKARA, PARSVANATH
OGD
The penultimate Jain Tirthankara Parsva was, in all probability, the real founder of Jainism. The Kalpasutra provides a brief history of his life, but even this brief account, like all other Jain writings, is full of stereotyped words and sentences. According to this account he was the son of Asvasena, king of Varanasi, by his wife
Vama. Charpentier in the Cambridge History of India observes that "no such person as Asvasena is known from Brahmana records to have
existed." We therefore need not accept the Jain account that Asvasena was really a king of Kasi. He probably belonged to an aristocratic Ksatriya family; let us not forget that the Jains have uniformly depicted all their Tirthankaras as kings' sons. The modern historian cannot help condemning this affected attitude of the early Jain canonical authors. This form of vanity is also discernible in the writings of the Buddhists, who leave no stone unturned to prove that their founder really belonged to the most august and aristocratic family of those times. It is, therefore, quite reasonable to infer that Parsva, like the Buddha or Mahavir, was a scion of a well-to-do Ksatriya family.
The most significant fact about Parsva is, however, that he belonged to Varanasi, the cultural and religious centre of India from time immemorial. As a citizen of this great city, he probably came into contact with some men of vision. That even the Ksatriyas of this city were men of learning and intuition is testified to by the fact that king Ajatasatru, lauded in the
Upanisadic texts, is described as belonging to this city. He (not to be confused with his Buddhist namesake) is delineated as expounded to Drpta Balaki Gargya, a Brahmin acharya, the real nature of atman. His son Bhadrasena Ajatasatrava, too, was a man of wisdom and a rival of the great Uddalaka. It is little wonder then that Parsva, as a scion of an aristocratic family of this marvellous metropolis, should have received some serious training in religion and philosophy in early youth. We are told that he led the householder's life up to the age of 30 and then renounced the world. Nothing more is indicated in the canonical texts regarding his early life. Only from some late texts do we learn that he married a woman named Prabhavati.
The Kalpasutra then goes on to say that after practising penance for 83 days Parsva obtained omniscience. Thereafter, we are told, he remained a kevalin for 70 years, dying at the age of 100 on the summit of Sammeta Mountain. The round figure of 100 is also suspect. We should remember that the Kalpasutra, which contains the earliest biography of this great prophet, was in all probability written 500 years after his death. Even so, one is prepared to believe that Parsva had a fairly long life and died in the fullness of years. The Kalpasutra does not give us any idea of Parsva's doctrine, but we have sufficient information in some other canonical texts about his teachings, and a number of these were composed before the