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time; one need only be born into one of the Videhas in order to have an immediate chance for moksa.70
At the present time our earth (Bharata-ksetra) is in a descending or regressive half-cycle, an avasarpinî. The first Tîrthankara of this avasarpini was Rsabha, who is said to have introduced agriculture, the caste system, law, monarchy, and the spiritual path of the mendicant. Thus he was, in the Jaina view. not only the first to undertake the holy life in this era, but also responsible for laying the groundwork of our entire civilization. After living for an extremely long period, approximately 600,000 years, he obtained moksa on the summit of Mount Kailasa. The cult of Rsabha has long been extremely popular among Jainas; indeed, during the medieval period, this cult was so well known in India that the Hindu text Bhagavata Purana included Rsabha as an amsavatara (minor incarnation of Visnu).71
We may thus assume that the first Tirthankara has been the object of more worship than even Mahavîra; but it is probably not correct to infer that he was ever considered the teacher of our era; this role has belonged to Mahavîra alone. One interesting tale, found in the later Puranas, links these two Jinas by suggesting that Rsabha's grandson, Marici, was later born as Mahâvîra.72 It is further related how this Marici became full of vanity and conceit upon hearing a prophecy of his future Jinahood; such excessive pride necessitated that he become the last (shortest-lived) Jina of the cycle. Scholars like Hiralal Jain have tried to bring the first Jina, and thus the beginnings of Jainism, into historical times, maintaining that the name Rsabha (having the sense of "bull") appears as an honorific term in the Rgueda and could there refer to the Jaina lawgiver.73 More convincing theories, taking note of the yogic, sramanic, and anti-Vaidic underpinnings of Jaina tradition, have sought to discover the roots of this tradition in pre-Aryan Indic civilizations. Nude standing images found in the Indus Valley ruins bear a striking resemblance to the oldest Jaina sculptures;74 further, there may be a link between the Indus bullseals and the bull-insignia of Rsabha.
Of the remaining Tirthankaras, only three can in any way be connected with historical evidence. The twenty-second, Nemi, seems to have flourished in Saurashtra, near the famous Girnar mounts (site of the Asokan inscriptions), and to have been a
