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2 : JAINS TODAY IN THE WORLD six periods. In the ascending cycles, periods show a growing progress, life on the earth is more and more easy and happy, good luck increases. In the descending cycles, the opposed phenomenon appears. We are now, according to the Jains, in the fifth period of a descending cycle. It started 3 years and 312 months after Mahāvīra's death that, according to some Jains took place in 527 BC. This period will last 21,000 years and be followed by another one of the same length but even worse to endure before a new ascending cycle will begin. Humans would be so now, all over the world, in a long period of decline, and would have increasing troubles that entail them to make
re and more sustained efforts to overcome difficulties and get their souls free of the unrelenting and very tiring transmigrations.
According to the Jains, during the first period of the descending cycle we are now experiencing, humans remained long in a world that permitted them to live without great efforts. The nature fulfilled their demands easily and the human life was free from tension. In the second period, this situation deteriorated. It became more pronoun during the third. At the end of it, humans living at that time required help. To fulfil their demands, fourteen "Manu" (sorts of Messiahs) successively appeared on earth. During the present period, when the situation got yet worse, Rşabha, the son of the fourteenth “Manu” Nābhirāja and his wife Marudevī, told mankind how to survive in such hostile surroundings. He taught them the basic principles of civilization, especially how to till the soil, read, write, count, build villages and organize life in their community. Rşabha (the bull in Sanskrit), proclaimed Emperor of India and nicknamed Ādinātha (First Lord), had a very large lineage of one hundred sons, amongst them Bharata and Gomața. This Bharata became Emperor in turn and according to the Jains gave his name to India (Bhärata varsa). Gomata is one of the most venerated Jain saints under the name of Bāhubali (the very vigorous).
Jain tradition tells us that Rşabha lived an extremely long time and retired from the world to lead a monastic life or a life of total self
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