Kalpasutra

Author(s): J Stevenson
Publisher: Oriental Translation Fund London

Page 14

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
the correctness of such an assumption. From Mahávíra upwards, indeed, to the preceding Tirthankara Pársvanáth, we have no list of head teachers, but we have only an interval of 250 years, while the term of Pársva's sublunary existence is still bounded by the possible number of a hundred years. So far the Jains are reasonable, and measured in their eras, compared with Brahmans and Buddhists; for even the latter throw Sákya's predecessor back to an immense period before the advent of the present Buddha. The moderation of the Jains, up to the time of Pársvanátha, is the more remarkable, as after that they far outstrip all their compeers in the race of absurdity, making the lives of their Tirthankars extend to thousands of years, and interposing between them countless ages, thus enabling us to trace with some confidence the boundary between the historical and the fabulous. There are, however, yet one or two other points in the accounts the Jains give us, which seem to have a historic bearing. The first is the relation said to have subsisted between the last Buddha and the last Tirthankara, the Jains making Mahávíra, Gautama's