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Lord Mahavira
is regarded as the founder of Christianity. For the Jains, however, Mahâvîra is merely one of a chain of teachers who all communicate the same truth in broadly similar ways and his biography, rather than being discrete, has to be treated as part of the larger totality of the Universal History and as meshing, through the continuing dynamic of rebirth, with the lives of other participants within it. Not until the ninth century CE is there found a biography of Mahâvîra, written by the Sanskrit poet Asaga, which treats his career without reference-to the other fordmakers. Nonetheless, since the historicity of Mahâvîra and his predecessor Parshva alone of all the fordmakers is not in question, and since it is the accounts of the life of Mahâvîra which are the most amenable to analysis, this chapter will focus upon the last fordmaker and associate the teachings of early Jainism with him. Firstly, though, I will contextualise Mahâvîra's life by giving a broad and brief account of the rhythm of the current movement of time as described in the Universal History.
Eras of time are conventionally represented in Jainism as being a continual series of downward and upward motions of a wheel, called respectively avasarpini and utsarpini. An avasarpini is divided into six spokes or ages, the first three representing a golden age which inaugurates a gradual process of degeneration leading to the Fifth spoke, the duhshama or ‘uneven' age, otherwise known as the Kaliyuga as we have already seen, followed by the sixth and final spoke when the Jain doctrine dies out, whereupon the utsarpini commences with the spokes in reverse order. While this process is beginningless and endless, the Universal History is in effect only concerned with this current avasarpini and that small area of the universe where human life is enacted. 11 No god is implicated in these spontaneous temporal movements, either in a creative or an overseeing role, and human beings and other creatures are repeatedly reborn under the impulse of their own actions.
During each motion of the wheel, twenty-four teachers, the fordmakers (tirthankara), appear in succession who activate the Three Jewels, the uncreated Jain teachings of right faith, right knowledge and right practice, and who found a community of ascetic and lay followers which serves as a spiritual ford (tirtha) for human beings over the ocean of rebirth. The pattern of the
