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Chapter 10
THEIR PROMINENT FEATURES IN INDIA AND ABROAD
As we have said, Jains consider their religion as the oldest in India. They assure that, like the world, it has always existed and will always exist. They assert that several Tīrthankara appear, at various periods, to promulgate the right law according to the era. Concerning the present time, they acknowledge 24 of these Tirthankara of whom the first, Rşabha started the “karma-bhūmi' (the age of action, and thus is "the promoter of human civilization”. Vilas Sangave writes in his book “Aspects of Jaina Religion”: “Lord Rşabha founded the social institutions of marriage, family, law, justice, state, etc. taught mankind the tilling of the soil, different arts and crafts, reading, writing and arithmetic, to built villages, towns and cities, etc. and to provide a new social order for increasing the welfare of human beings”.
Rşabha is not only cited in various Jain documents but also in Vedic literature and Hindu “Purāna". His son, Bharata, who conquered the country of the Dasyu (Dravidians) in the South of India, was an Emperor who gave his name to India (Bhārata or Bhāratavarşa). The problem is that we have different versions about the inhabitants of that period and historians have no absolute proof they were Jains. Hindus assert they were living during the Vedic period and they practised Vedic religion. So, it is possible that, in ancient times, several great sovereigns existed in India called “Rşabha", word meaning "bull" in Sanskrit, and that the name "Bhārata" has another origin...
Some historians regard most of the Tīrthankara as mythical beings. They admit only the reality of the 23'd and of the 24" who lived between the VII and the Vih-vth centuries BC. This does not mean that the others never existed but we have no authentic evidence they did. On the other hand, some scientists and scholars think that Jainism
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