Theories Of Parinama

Author(s): Indukala H Jhaveri
Publisher: Gujarat University

Page 95

CHAPTER VI
JAIN SOURCES
History of the Jain Church
According to Jain tradition, Jain religion is eternal and it has been revealed again and again in every one the endless succed. ing periods of the world by innumerable groups of twenty-four Tirthamkaras. In the present Avasarpiņıl period, the first Tirthamkara was Rşabha and the last, the twenty-fourth was Vardhamāna Mahavira. According to Jacobi, “all the Tirthamkaras except the two last, viz., Pārsva and Mahavira, belong to mythology rather than to history”? The Svetāmbara tradition places the death of Mahāvīra in 527 B. C. Jacobi, however, gives 477 B. C, as the date of Mahavira's death. The death of Pārsva is placed at the reasonable interval of 250 years before that of Mahāvīra. This fact, viz. that the Jain Church existed before Mahāvira and that the latter was only a reformer and propagator of the old religion
1.
Tim, in Jain philosophy, is infinite; but there are cycles in it, each cycle having two eras of equal duration described as the Avasarpiņi and the Utsarpiņi - a metaphor drawn from the revolving wheel. The former is the descending era in which virue gradually decreases; and the latter, the ascending in which the reverse takes place. The present era is stated to be the former. Studies in Jainism, p. 9. The Gujarāti translation of his article in German - published in the Journal 'Bhartiya Vidyā', 1945, (Singhi Smāraka Grantha), p. 182. This is his last article discussing the probable dates of the death of Mahā. vira and Buddha (1930). In a previous article which is published in ERE, Vol. VII. pp. 465-474 as well as in 'Studies in Jainism', he held a different view, about the dates of the Nirvāņa of Mahāvira and Buddha - according to which Mahāvira died before Buddha's death. Now, he is of the opinion, that Mahavira lived seven years after the death of Buddha which is assigned to 484 B.C. .