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SUPARSHVA AND PARSHVA - SOME REFLECTIONS
२४९
Suparshva being a prehistoric personage in the Shramanic tradition, the picture that we get from his account in Uttara Purana is that of a puranic figure with two hundred bow's height and two crore and thirtyfive lakh years' longevity. On the other hand, according to the same work, Parshva's height was just nine times the length of the forearm and he had a hundred years' longevity. This clearly establishes him as a historical personage who lived some two hundred and fifty years before Mahavira. Though there is a puranic outer layer covering up his historical personality, there is an unmistakable historicity about him, one of the important factors throwing light on his historicity is the historical evidence of the existence of a large number of contemporary panchangni ascetics of the non-Shramanic tradition during his time. These ascetics resorted to panchagnic tapas to free themselves from worldly miseries. This historical fact is clearly brought out in the accounts of Parshvanatha's life. Tracing the correspondences between the Jaina and Vaidika puranas, some scholars have tried to identify Jayasena of Uttara purana with Krithanjaya, King of Ayodhya, belonging to the Ikshwaku lineage of the Vaidika puranasó. According to the Jaina puranas, Mahavira attained nirvana two hundred and fifty years after Parshvanatha's nirvana. This shows thạt Parshvanatha was a historical figure who lived in the ninth century B.C. On the other hand, it is almost impossible to establish the historicity of Suparshva.
Part 1
Suparshva, Parshva and Naga
Since the statues of both Suparshva and Parshvanatha show the hooded naga overhead, it is a little confusing. Quite often, Suparshva's images are easily mistaken for those of Parshvanatha for this reason. If the statues are to be differentiated, it can only be done on the basis of their different emblems. While Suparshva's emblem is swastika, Parshva's emblem is sarpa. It may be asked
