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The Fordmakers
297 name, which means 'bull', is mentioned frequently in the Rigveda, and they also argue that a well-known Vedic hymn (Rigveda 10.136) which describes a long-haired sage (keshin muni) in fact refers to Rishabha who is frequently depicted iconographically with long hair down his back.
It is possible to interpret this differently. The word 'bull' does appear frequently in the Veda but as an epithet of the god Indra, while Rishabha's name and hair suggest a comparison with the Hindu high god Shiva who rides the bull Nandin, has a topknot or mass of matted hair on his head, is both householder and ascetic and whose mythology was taking shape at the same time as the first, skeletal biography of Rishabha was being written in the Kalpasutra.43 Little more can be said about this matter and, instead of speculating about the existence of a teacher for whom no convincing historical evidence can be produced elsewhere, it seems better to view the story of Rishabha as structurally necessary for the Universal History and to conclude that his reality within the framework of Jain mythology and in the minds of his devotees is the more important factor.
The biographies of Rishabha and Parshva, along with that of the twenty-second fordmaker Nemi, given in the Kalpasutra are modelled on the life of Mahâvîra and lack any clear sense of individuality, although that is not to say that more distinctive biographies were not evolving elsewhere (cf. Utts 22 for Nemi). Whenever the full list of twenty-four fordmakers gained currency, the images discovered at Mathura, which are roughly contemporary with this textual material and are the earliest significant artistic evidence available, not unsurprisingly show that the four fordmakers given extended biographies in the Kalpasutra were by far the most prominent at the beginning of the common era. Moreover, there is no evidence at this early period, either textual or artistic, for the distinguishing emblems (e.g. Mahâvîra with lion) with which the fordmakers came to be associated and with the exception of Parshva and his canopy of cobra hoods, the images can only be identified by their names engraved beneath them.44
The genuine existence of a chain of twenty-four teachers is not in itself implausible, but it should be recognised that the first reference, occurring in the Kalpasutra, to the twenty intermediate fordmakers, that is those between Rishabha and Nemi, does no
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