The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c18.12

v1.c18.12

Mahāvīra is usually regarded as the real founder of the Jain religion; and, as we have very scanty information about the only one of his alleged predecessors, who may possibly have had a real existence, we are, in our investigation, almost forced to adopt this point of view. But the Jains themselves claim for their religion a far more venerable antiquity: they tell us that before Mahāvīra there lived not less than 23 *tīrthakaras* or ‘prophets,’ who appearing at certain intervals preached the only true religion for the salvation of the world. The first of these prophets was king Ṛishabha, who after laying down his royal power and transferring the realm to his son Bharata, the first universal monarch (*chakravartin*), became a holy man and a *tīrthakara*. As the opinions of the Jains about time and the ages of the world¹ are absurdly exaggerated, it is almost impossible to express in numbers the time at which he is thought to have lived; it may be enough to say that his lifetime is supposed to have lasted for several billions of years and his height to have been about two miles. From such statements and from the flowery descriptions of the blissful state of the world in its first ages, it is evident that the Jains, as indeed, all Hindus, attributed to the first race of men a longer life, a greater strength, and more happiness than fall to the share of their offspring in the present age. As we know, the Greeks and Romans held similar opinions. But, of course, the world grew worse and worse and the life of man shorter and shorter, so that the 23rd *tīrthakara*, Pārçva, the immediate predecessor of Mahāvīra, is said to have lived only for a hundred years, and to have died only 250 years before his more celebrated successor.