Religion and Culture of the Jains

Author(s): D C Sirkar
Publisher: University of Calcutta

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RELIGION AND CULTURE OF THE JAINS
four Tirthankaras who appeared one after the other-and of course at intervals-to save the religion from corruption and decay. But this scheme holds good only for the present age or Avasarpiņi. What about the past and the future ages ? For them also was allotted a band of twenty-four Tirthankaras each. Then, since, according to the Jain cosmology, the universe has ten worlds (or a sort of continents) like Jambudvipa-Bharata where we live, each world was allotted, for its past, present and future eras, three bands, of twenty-four Tirthankaras, which make the total number of Tirthankaras as many as 720 (24×3x10-720). We are provided with the names of all the seven hundred and twenty Tirthankaras; but minute details are given only for the twenty-four beloging to the present age of Jambudvipa-Bharata alone.
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The myth-makers then tried to solve the problem of the vastness of the present era by allotting an ever-increasing life-span to each preceding Tirthankara as well as by gradually extending the time-gap between any particular Tirthankara and his preceding counterpart. Thus, while the twenty-fourth Tirthankara Mahavira lived for 72 years, Parsva who just spreceded him, had a life-span of 100 years; and his two predecessors, Arişţanemi and Naminatha, lived for 1000 and 10,000 years respectively. In this way, the first Tirthankara, viz. Rşabha, was thought of as having a fantastic life-span of 8,400,000 pūrva or great years. Again, while the time-gap between Mahavira and Pārśva was of 250 years, that between Pārsva and Aristanemi was considerably increased; and, again, the interval between the latter and his predcessor Naminatha was still further extended and in this way, the ultimate interval between the second and first Tirthankaras rose to many millions of years.
Besides having ever-increasing life-spans, each earlier Tirthankara was of ever-increasing height. Thus, while the twenty-fourth Tirthankara had a moderate height of seven cubits, his two predecessors Pārśva and Arişṭanemi were res*[This is abnormal.-Ed.]