Page:The Heart of Jainism (IA heartofjainism00stevuoft).djvu/79

 fourth; but the Jaina have legends regarding each one of their predecessors.

The first Tīrthaṅkara was born when the world had passed out of its happiest stage and was in the era of Suṣama Duṣama. A Rajput king had a little son born to him, whom his mother called Ṛiṣabhadeva, because in her dream she had seen a bull (ṛiṣabha)) coming towards her. Ṛiṣabhadeva (also called Ādinātha) taught men seventy-two arts and women sixty-four, for these have only to be skilled in domestic and not in literary and industrial crafts; but his great glory lies in the fact that he first taught men the Jaina faith. He lived for eighty-four lakhs of pūrva of time, of which he spent only one lakh of pūrva as an ascetic. Ṛiṣabhadeva had one hundred sons (amongst whom was the famous king Bharata); their height was five hundred bow-shots. This first Tīrthaṅkara attained mokṣa from Aṣṭāpada (or Kailāsa) in the modern Himalayas.

The world grew steadily worse, and in fifty lakhs of crores of sāgara of time the next Tīrthaṅkara, Ajitanātha, was born in Ayodhyā. After his birth all his father's enemies were conquered (jita), hence his name, 'the invincible one'. He was born in the period called Duṣama Suṣama, and all the remaining Tīrthaṅkara were born in the same period. His sign, which one sees on all his images in the temples, is an elephant. During his life he himself earned the title of Victorious, for he was so devout an ascetic that he was beaten by none in performing austerities. He attained mokṣa together with a thousand other Sādhus.

After thirty more lakhs of crores of sāgara Sambhavanātha, the third Tīrthaṅkara, was born in Śrāvastī of Rajput parents. The king his father had been distressed to see the way his dominions were ravaged by plague and famine, but when he heard the good news of the boy's birth, he felt there was a chance (sambhava) of better times coming, hence the boy's name. He too was able to persuade a thousand