Mahavira His Life and Teachings

Author(s): Bimla Charn Law
Publisher: Luzac and Co UK

Page 52

Parsa wartoprechte nor of Maharria 45
The Jain tradition of Tīrthankaras was built up by the noble career of certain Ksatriya teachers. In this tradition, the rôle played by Mabāvīra was that of the very last reformer. His immediate predecessor was Pārśva or Pārsvanātha who too has been proved to be an historical personage'. He 'lived a hundred years, and died 250 years before Mahāvīra ’’ According to the KalpaSūtra, 'the Arhat Pārsva, the people's favourite, lived thirty years as a householder, . . . full seventy years as a Sramaņa, and a hundred years on the whole'? And he died on the summit of Mt. Sammeta (modern Paresnath hill in the Hazaribagh District).
As for his popularity and great influence, we are told that he' had an excellent community of sixteen thousand śramaņas. . (and) thirty-eight thousand nuns': The religious Order founded by him continued to exist till the time when Mahavira saw the light of the day. The followers of Pārsva, referred to as Sramaņas in the Jain books, used to wear clothes. The Pūrvas were their sacred books. The catuyāmasamvara or 'fourfold restraint' was regarded as a distinctive feature of
4 Chimanlal J. Shah, Jainism in Northern India, P. 12. 2 Kalpa-Sutra, 168 3 Ibid., 166.