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274
JAINA MYTHOLOGY
and continued to do so every third day throughout their lives.
In Sușama Duşama the happiness has become mixed with sorrow; the twins are now only two miles in height, have only sixty-four ribs, and live only for one palya, but on their death they still go to Devaloka. It was during this period that Risabhadeva, the first Tirthankara, was born. He taught the twins seventy-two useful arts, such as cooking, sewing, &c.; for he knew that the desire-fulfilling trees would disappear, and that human beings would then have only themselves to depend on. Risabhadeva is also credited with having introduced politics and established a kingdom, but his daughter Brahmi, the Jaina patron of learning, is even more interesting than her father. This learned lady invented eighteen different alphabets (oh, misdirected energy!) including Turkish, Nagari, all the Dravidian dialects, Canarese, Persian, and the character used in Orissa. From these, the Jaina say, were derived Gujarati and Marathi. It is strange that a people who believe the patron of letters to have been a woman should so long have refused to educate their own daughters: surely in this particular they might safely follow the example of so illustrious a being as their first Tirthankara.
In the period of Duşama Sușama, which lasted for one crore of crores of sagaropama less forty-two thousand years, the height of man was five hundred span, the number of his ribs thirty-two, and his age one crore of pūrva. The women born in this age ate twenty-eight morsels of food, the men thirty-two, and they both dined once during the day. During this time the Jaina religion was fully developed, and there were born the remaining twenty-three Tirthankara, eleven Čakravarti, nine Baladeva, nine Vasudeva, and nine Prativasudeva. People born during this epoch did not all pass to Devaloka, but might be reborn in any of the four Gati (hell, heaven, man, or beast), or might become Siddha.
