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JINAS AND AVTARS*
- G. Parrinder
The Victors & The Incarnated
The Jains are an ancient and important, but small, religious minority in India, now numbering about a million and a half followers. Western historians have spoken of their religion as 'founded' by Vardhamana, Mahâvîra, an older contemporary of Gautama Buddha. But the Jains themselves regard Mahâvîra as the last of a long series of the Jinas of this era, of whom the first lived millions of years ago.
It is said that there are twenty-four Jinas, and there is an easy comparison with the twenty-five Buddhas of the late Pali texts, and the twenty-two Avatars of the even later Bhagavata Purana. It seems likely that the Jain idea of twenty-four Jinas is the oldest, for it is common to their two major sects, the Digdambara and the Svetambara, which separated at leact by the early centuries before Christ. Although the belief in successive Jinas is closer to the Buddhist idea of successive Buddhas than to Hindu doctrines of Avatars, yet there are some interesting links with Hindu myths, particularly the Krishna cycle.
Lives of the Twenty-four Jinas
The Jain saints are called Jinas, 'conquerors', or Tîrthankaras, 'ford-finders' or 'crossing-makers', those who have made a crossing over the waters of transmigration to find salvation in Nirvana.
The earliest Jina was Rishabha of Kosala, who lived millions of years ago. His story is pure myth, and he is credited with famous
* Avtar and Incarnation, Feber and Feber, London.
