Jinamanjari 1999 09 No 20

Author(s): Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication

Page 11

Jinamañjari, Volume 20, No.2, October 1999
JAINISM AND MAHĀVĪRA
Dr. Shashi Kant, Lucknow, India
With the arrival to South Asia of the “nomadic Aryan cattleherd[ers) during the second millennium B.C.E.” came a tension between one philosophy steeped in a tradition of nivịtti mārga -- for example, the Jaina philosophy of attaining moksa through self-reliance -- and another steeped in a tradition of pravịtti mārga -- the path of mokṣa through attachment to earthly delights with a dependency on a deity. For the most part, the philosophy underlying nivịtti mārga became the Sramanic system -- a system of philosophical speculation and asceticism with an emphasis placed on abstinence and renunciation. 2 The philosophy underlying pravrtti mārga was to develop into the Brahmanical system. Jainism, one of the oldest living religions of the world, represents the Sramanic tradition.
According to its tradition, Jainism has had a continuous history in the subcontinent -- a history that is divided into cycles of time that "consists of two main periods of some 600 million years, each subdivided into six parts." 3 Of the two main half-cycles, one is a period of ascent when Jinas, also known as Tīrthankaras, are born and the other is a period of descent and spiritual decay. In the last time cycle there were twenty-four Jinas from Rşabha to Mahāvīra.4 Prof. U.P. Shah observes that on the basis of Jaina sculptures this line of Tīrthankaras was quite developed by the second or third century C.E. He notes that at the Mathura archaeological site Tirthankaras Rşabha (1), Nemi (22), Pārsva (23) and Mahavira (24) have all been identified by the time of the Kuşāna period, as well as Sambhava (3) and Munisubrata (20), who have been recognized according to inscriptions on them.” According to the latest scholarship, the hagiography of these Tīrthankaras has been presented in the following three categories:
- Prehistoric, the first two namely Rşabha and Ajita; - Protohistoric (c.4000 - 1500 B.C.E), Sambhava to Munisubrata, and