The Doctrine of the Jainas, Described after the Old Sources c6.40.2

c6.40.2

In spite of his being more frequently referred to than his precursors, yet Ariṭṭhanemi—he lived to the age of a thousand years—is by no means historically more tangible than they are. The only thing to be advanced might be that in the year of Mahāvīra’s Nirvāṇa he had been dead for 84,000 years (Jinac. 182f.), because it should be remembered that the figure of 84 or either of its plurals frequently appear with the Jains and elsewhere where they only fail to give precise details for something founded on fact. Acc. to Jinac. 184 Ariṭṭhanemi’s precursor, Nami, died half a million years back, and as is the case with all other figures in the lives of the Jinas, so these intervals, too, increase into the gigantic by retrogradation. Pāsa, however, acc. to Jinac. 168 f. died 250 years before Mv. (1230 minus 980) at an age of one hundred years. Ever since STEVENSON came to point out this moderation in quoting figures¹ these two dates have served as an argument for Pāsa's being an historic person, though what else we are told of him in Jiṇac. 149f. is merely a copy of Mahāvīra's biography with the exception that Pāsa is said to have been born in Benares and to have died on the Sammeya mountain in Bihar. Nor do we learn anything of importance² from Pāsa's role Nāyādh. II 1 and Pupph. 1, 3. But he is attested as a historic personality by other passages in rendering his teaching and reporting on his followers.