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HISTORICITY OF TIRTHANKARA PARSVANATHA AND ... 874 Clarendon Press, Oxford under the editorship of Prof. Maxmuller. Prof. Jacobi chose to study Pitakas in Pali also and through his comparative and analytical study, he declared clearly that it was not lord Mahavira who established Jainism, but he only preached and propagated it which was traditionally available, suiting the age and circumstances. His predecessor and torch-bearer of the
Jain tradition was lord Parsvanatha, who was considered as the · 23rd Tirthankara of the present descending era'.
The historicity of Parasvanatha has been generally accepted by the scholars both in India and in the West?. According to Zimmer, of the 24th Tirthankaras, the earlier are mythological personalities, and mythology has been abundently poured into their biographies. Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly evident that there must be some truth in the Jaina tradition of the great antiquity of their religion, at least with respect to Parsva, the Tirthankara just preceding Mahavira. We have grounds for believing that he actually lived and taught, and was a Jaina?. Dr. Radhakrishnan says that there is evidence to show that so far as the first century B.C., there were people who were worshipping Rishabhadeva, the first Tirthankara. Vardhamana was not so much the founder of a new faith as the reformer of the previously existing creed of : Parsvanatha, who is said to have died in 776 B.C.4.
:: Char! Charpentier writes - "We ought also to remember · that the Jain religion is certainly older than Mahavira, his reputed predecessor Parsva having almost certainly existed as a real person, and that consequently, the main points of the original doctrine may have been codified long before Mahaviras".
Dr. A.L.Basham writes - "As he (Vardhamana Mahavira) is referred to in the Buddhist scriptures as one of the Buddhist Chief opponents, his historicity is beyond doubt... Parsva was remembered as 23rd of the 24 great teachers of Tirthankaras of the Jain faith."
