The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c41.s1.36

v2.c41.s1.36

Some would fix the Vedic period by first establishing the probable date of the Bhāratan war, and then by reckoning of generations on the basis of epic or Purāṇa genealogies dating certain kings who figure in the Rigveda. Thus the war is placed by various modern critics, contrary to tradition, about 950 B.C. or 850 B.C., whence it is deduced that some at least of the personages of the Rigveda flourished no more than a couple of centuries earlier.⁷ There is nothing impossible in such a result, but it must be confessed that it is difficult to put any faith on the epic or Purāṇa genealogies, and that the probative value of such reasonings must be admitted to be minimal.⁸ Least of all is it possible to find any support for the proposed date of the war in Jain tradition, which places Ariṣṭanemi, the second predecessor of Mahāvīra, contemporary with Kṛṣṇa. This can be made to support the date only by assuming a period of two hundred years between each Tīrthaṁkara. For this idle assumption we have not the slightest evidence of any kind. The Jain tradition gives Pārçvanātha a semblance of reality by placing him 250 years before Mahāvīra, Ariṣṭanemi it banishes to the remotest antiquity, and we have not the slightest evidence of any kind that any Tīrthaṁkara of that or any other name existed *c.* 950 B. C. Even the historical existence of Pārçvanātha is totally unproved. But at any rate, since the Jains themselves did not believe that Ariṣṭanemi was a figure of comparatively recent history, it is really otiose for us to rewrite their scriptures.