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The Founders of Jainism
143 1 rajju = the distance a god can go in 6 months when he
goes 100,000 yojanas in the winking of an eye22 Measures of Time
1 purva - 8,400,0002 years23
1 palya (or, palyopama) = the length of time required to empty a receptacle one yojana (9 miles) wide and deep, which is filled with new lamb's hairs grown within seven days, when one hair is taken out every hundred years.24
1 sagara (or, sagaropama), “ocean of years” = 10 krores of palyas = 100,000,000 palyas25
Applying these units to the table of Tîrthankaras, we find, for example, the Rishabha was three thousand feet in height, and that the interval between his Nirvana and that of Ajita was 50 x 100,000 x 10,000,00 “oceans of years” (sagaras), or 50 x 10,000 x 10,000,000 x 100,000,000 palyas.
The most striking fact in the entire table is that, whereas enormous magnitudes of size and time are involved throughout most of the chart, there is a progressive diminution in the measurements until at the bottom of the table the figures come almost or entirely within the realm of actual earthly possibilities. Specifically, the last two Tîrthankara appear as persons of exxaggerated but not utterly fantastic size, of thoroughly reasonable age-lengths of 100 and 72 years respectively and with a relatively brief interval between them of only 250 years. The conclusion is suggested, therefore, that while the earlier Tîrthankara are purely mythological beings, Parsva and Mahâvîra were actual historical persons and the real founders of the religion.26
Parsva
The life of Parsva (or Parsvanatha) is narrated in the Kalpasutra, a work which contains a date nine hundred and eighty years after the death of Mahâvîra and is said to have been read publicly before a certain King Dhruvasena of Anandapura27 to comfort him upon the death of his son.28 While it is characteristic of the Jaina literature to portray all of the Tîrthankaras according to one stereotyped pattern, and while the account of Parsva's life no doubt contains much that is legendary, nevertheless the kind
