Outlines of Jainism

Author(s): S Gopalan
Publisher: Wiley Eastern Private Limited New Delhi

Page 21

Jainism Before Mahavira
ONE
NE of the misunderstandings regarding Jainism is that Mahāvīra was its founder. Serious students have taken pains to show that though it is difficult to assign a specific date for the origin of Jainism, it is a historical fact that Jainism was older than Mahavīra. C.J. Shah writes: "It is really difficult, nay impossible, to fix a date for the origin of Jainism. Nevertheless modern research has brought us at least to that stage wherein we can boldly proclaim all those worn-out theories about Jainism being a later offshoot of Buddhism or Brahmanism as gross ignorance or....as erroneous misstatements. On the other hand we have progressed a step further, and it would be now considered an historical fallacy to say that Jainism originated with Mahāvīra without putting forth any new grounds for justifying this statement. This is because it is now a recognized fact that Pärśva, the twenty-third Tirthankara of the Jainas, is an historical person, and Mahāvīra, like any other jina, enjoyed no better position than that of a reformer in the galaxy of the Tirthankaras of the Jainas."1
2
It is clear from the above that if Mahāvīra is considered to have originated Jainism it will be difficult for us to account for its hoary past. The Jainas claim that their religion is eternal and that during every yuga it has been revealed by twenty-four Tirthankaras. Of the present age the first Tirthankara is considered to be one Rṣabha and the last, Mahāvīra.2 So Mahāvīra can, according to
1 op. cit., p. 2
2 The other twenty-two Tirthankaras (from the second to the twenty-third)