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ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF JAINA SANGHA
J. C. Sikdar
After Rşabhadeva there appear the names of the following twenty three Tirthakaras in the Jaina purāņic tradition, viz. Ajita, Sambhava, Abhinandana, Sumati, Padmaprabha, Supārsva, Candraprabha, Puspadanta Sitala, Sreyamsa, Vasupujya, Vimala, Ananta, Dharma, Santi, Kunthu, Araha, Mallı, Munisuvrata, Nami, Nemi, Pārsvangth and Vardhamana, 1 But it is not possible to make a comparative study of the life of the twenty one Tirthankaras froin Ajita to Nemi with the historical background in the absence of genuine historical documents regarding their historicity. Nevertheless, some evidences of the historical existence of the last two Tirthankaras- Pärsvanātha and Vardhamana or Mahavira are available to throw some light upon the historical existence of the sect of Parsvanātha and the rise of Jaina sangha at the time of Mahavira under his spiritual leadership. It should be kept in view that the study of the sect of the twenty third Tirthankara and that of the last one will not be complete in the present state of the Jaina Agamas, but some portions of them give some ideas about the actual position of Jaina Sangha in the beginning of its formation.
Pārsvarātha and His Historicity
According to the Jaina tradition, Parávanātha was born in the royal family of King Asvasena and queen Vamadevi of Varanasi and he took to asceticism by renouncing the worldly life at the age of thirty. After his seventy year's ascetic life he attained nirvāņa (liberation) by observing Samlekhanxtapa for a month3 at Sametasikhara at the age of one hundred, at a time two hundred and fifty years before the nirvana of Mahavira, having fulfilled his glorious mission as Tarthankara.
Since Herman Jacobis gave the convincing proof of the historical existence of Nirgrantha sect, flourishing at a period prior to the time of Mahavira and accepted Parsvanātha as a historical person on the basis of the evidences of the Jaina and Buddhist canons studied by him with deep critical historical acumen the scholars began to accept the historicity of Parsvanatha and the Jaina tradition of the attainment of his nirvana two hundred and fifty years earlier than that of the last Tirthankara, Mahavire.
