Outlines of Jainism

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

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JAINISM
Ci1aaaarintione
ULIONIS
Arhat Vardhamāna !8 Commenting on the value of these inscr Cunningham writes: “The information derived from these inscriptions is of the greatest value for the ancient history of India. The general purport of all of them is the same-to record the gifts of certain individuals, for the honour of their religion; and for the benefit of themselves and their parents. When the inscriptions are confined to this simple announcement they are of little importance, but as the donors in most of these Mathura records have added the name of the reigning kings, and the samvat date at the time of the gift, they form in fact so many skeleton pages of the lost history ..." From our point of view these inscriptions indicate a very ancient origin of Jainism and also the probable succession of a number of Tīrthankaras.
The Kalpa-Sūtralo and other Jaina works mention the fact that Pārsvanātha came to a hill in Patna before his 'release from bondage'. The hill is named 'Paraśnāth Hill' and it seems to be a monumental evidence in regard to the historicity of Pārśva.
From a number of references to Pārśva and the Jainas in general in the Jaina classics we can maintain that the historicity of Pārsva at least cannot be denied and that Jainism was certainly older than Mahāvīra. We shall cite only a few passages here. The Uttarādhyayana-Sutra records the meeting of Keśi (a follower of Pārsva) and Gautama (a disciple of Mahāvīra) and also the discussions they had regarding the differences between their two creeds.11 The dispute is mentioned as having ended by the former accepting the latter's views.12 We find the distinction between the four vows of the Pārsva school and the five vows of the Mahāvīra school.13
In some Hindu classics also we find references to the Jainas. The Vişnu-Purāņa, the Mahābhārata and the Manusmặti are cases in point. In our context the historical dates of the Hindu scriptures in which mention is made of Jainism is not important, for what impresses us (and the scholars in search of information regarding the antiquity of Jainism) is the fact that references are made to
8 Ibid., 1, 396, Inscr. VIII 9 Archaeological Survey of India Reports, Vol. III, pp. 38-39 10 168 11 XXIII. 9 12 XXIII. 29 13 XXIII. 12