Life in Ancient India as Depicted in the Jain Canons, with Commentaries: An Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey c5.s2.13

c5.s2.13

Pārśvanātha founded the four orders (*gaṇas*) with their Gaṇadharas⁴⁹ which shows that possibly the arrangement for the organization of the Jain Church was the best which could be had in those early days. Reference has already been made to the ascetics belonging to the order of Pārśva moving about in a congregation during the course of Mahāvīra's ascetic life. Thus it is evident that Jainism was not a new phenomenon in the history of Indian religion of the sixth century B.C., as is popularly supposed, but it goes back to the period of Pārśvanātha, the 23rd *Tīrthankara* of the Jains, as early as the ninth century B.C.