Religion and Culture of the Jains

Author(s): Jyoti Prasad Jain
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 24

CHAPTER II THE TWENTYFOUR TĪRTHANKARAS
The traditional history of Jainism, from the earliest known times down to the age of Mahāvīra, the last Tīrthankara (6th century B.C.), is principally based on the facts consistently maintained by this religion. In order to appreciate them, it would be advisable to keep in mind its primary assumption that the universe, with all its constituents of components is without a beginning or an end, being everlasting and eternal, and that the wheel of time incessantly revolves, pendulum like in half circles, one ascending and the other descending-from the paradisical to the catastrophical period and back to the former.
Thus, for practical purposes, a unit of the cosmic time is called kalpa, which is divided into two parts, the avasarpiņi (descending) and the utsarpiņi (ascending), each with six subdivisions. The subdivisions of the avasarpiņi (the descending half-circle) are known as the first (happy-happy), second (happy), third (happy-unhappy), fourth (unhappy-happy), fifth (unhappy), and sixth (unhappy-unhappy), kālas (periods or ages). At the end of the sixth kāla of the avasarpiņī, the revolution reverses and the utsarpiņī (the ascending half-circle) commences, with its first age being again the sixth, followed by the fifth, fourth, third, second and first kālas, successively, retracing its steps like the pendulum of a clock, and the process goes on ad infinitum.
The utsarpinī therefore, marks a period of gradual evolution and the avasarpiņī that of gradual devolution or decline in human