________________
Jainism before Lord Mahāvira
Vasudevas, 1 nine Baladevasa and nine Prativasudevas3 lived within the period ranging from the first to the twenty-second Tirthankara. Together with the twentyfour Tirtharkaras, there are sixtythree great personages (Trishashțisalākāpurushacharita) of Jaina history.
From such statements and descriptions of the blissful state of the world at its initial stages, it is evident that the Jainas, like the Hindus, attributed to the first race of man a longer life and greater strength and happiness than what fall to the share of his offspring in the present age. We know that the Greeks and Romans also held similar views. The world has grown worse and worse, and the life of man shorter and shorter, so that the twentythird Tirthankara, Pārsva, is said to have lived only for a hundred years, and died 250 years before his more celebrated successor, Mahāvīra, who lived only for seventytwo years. ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE TO ASCERTAIN THE TRUTHFULNESS OF THE LEGENDS
This legendary account of the existence of Jainism in such an early period on the basis of Jaina scriptures is not reliable, as it is not consistent with archaeological facts. The archaeologists tell a different story. The earliest man of Early Palaeolithic Culture lived in India in the Middle Pleistocene Period, i.e., some 200,000 years ago. Economically, man was then a savage and a hunter, and with the help of stone tools, he subsisted largely on fruits, roots and grubs, and on the chase with the help of his bow and arrow. The Middle Stone Age Culture is assigned to the later half of the Pleistocene (25,000 years before), and the tools are of typical flake 1. (1) Achala, (2) Vijaya, (3) Bhadra, (4) Suprabha, (5) Sudarśana, (6)
Ananda, (7) Nandana, (8) Padma, and (9) Rāma. 2. (1) Triprishtha, (2) Dviprishtha, (3) Svayambhu, (4) Purushoitama,
(5) Purushasimha, (6) Purushapundarika, (7) Datta, (8) Nārāyana,
and (9) Kţishna. 3. (1) Ašvagrīva, (2) Tāraka, (3) Meraka, (4) Madhu, (5) Nisumbha, (C) Bali, (7) Prahlada, (8) Rāvana, and (9) Jarāsandha.
The legends of their lives form the subject of Hemachandra's 'great epic, the Trishashrišalákāpurushacharita based on older sources, probably the Vēsudevahindi.
