Bhagavan Parshvanath
was born about 380 years before the Nirvana of Bhagavan
or in the 10th century BC.
Past-Incarnation
Like other Tirthankars, important events of earlier
incarnations of the being that became Bhagavan Parshvanath
are available in Jain scriptures. Study of these
incidents reveals that amnesty and compassion played
a major part in his life and progress toward purity
of soul. In every incarnation his rival, Kamath,
continued to torture him and he continued to forgive
and forget.
Kamath and Marubhuti
The soul that was to be Bhagavan Parshvanath was
inspired to take the direction of purity in its
birth as Marubhuti. He was born to the wife of Purohit
Vishabhuti living in Potanpur city. His elder brother
was Kamath. As Kamath was cruel, conceited, and
a debauch, in spite of being the elder son it was
Marubhuti who succeeded his father on the post of
Rajpurohit (the director of ritual ceremonies of
the king and state). Attracted toward the beautiful
wife of Marubhuti, Vasundhara, Kamath seduced her.
When Kamath’s wife came to know about the affair,
she tried to dissuade him in vain and told Marubhuti
about it. Marubhuti made a secret inquiry and conveyed
everything in detail to the king. Kamath was exiled
by the king. He became a mendicant and started doing
rigorous penance.
After sometime Marubhuti felt that it was because
of his report that Kamath was insulted and thrown
out of the state; as such he should go and beg forgiveness
from his elder brother. Marubhuti went into the
jungle near Kamath and bowed before him seeking
his pardon. Instead of getting pacified, Kamath
was over powered by the desire of vengeance. He
picked up a large stone and hit Marubhuti on the
head. Marubhuti died on the spot.
The King Elephant
The soul of Marubhuti was reborn as an elephant
in the forests of Vindhyachal. It became the leader
of the herd. One day when an ascetic was standing
in meditation in the Vindhyachal area, the king
elephant came near him. The memory of its past life
precipitated and it became a follower of the ascetic
and turned mellow and detached. One day the elephant
rushed into and stationed itself in the middle of
a pond in order to save himself from a forest fire.
The being that was Kamath had taken birth as a serpent
of the Kurkut species. When it saw the elephant,
the serpent recognized it as its enemy from the
earlier birth. The serpent landed on the head of
the elephant and stung it. The elephant equally
tolerated the pain and died peacefully.
Suvarnbahu Chakravarti
In his third birth the being that was Marubhuti
reincarnated as a god in the Sahasrar dimension.
From there it descended and was born as prince Kiranveg
in Mahavideh area. He furthered his progress towards
purity by becoming an ascetic and was killed once
again by the Kamath, now born as a snake. His next
birth was as a god in the Achyut Kalpa dimension.
From there he came to Mahavidh area as king Vajranabh.
Kamath was born as a Bhil aborigine who shot Vajranabh,
who had become an ascetic now, with an arrow. Reincarnating
in the Madhyam Graiveyak dimension of gods, the
being that was to be Parshvanath enjoyed the fruits
of his pious Karma.
In
his eighth birth this being was born in the royal
family of Puranpur in the Mahavideh area. After
ascending the throne Suvarnbahu conquered six
continents and became a Chakravarti. In later
part of his life he became an ascetic and did
purest of meditations to earn Tirthakar-nam-and-gotra-karma.
During this birth also, this being was killed
by its old enemy Kamath who was born as a fierce
lion. From here this being went to the Pranat
dimension of gods.
Descending from the Pranat dimension of gods,
the being that was Marubhuti came into the womb
of Vama Devi, wife of King Ashvasen of Varanasi.
On the tenth day of the dark half of the month
of Paush Vama Devi gave birth to a son. At the
time of his naming ceremony king Ashvasen announced
that during her pregnancy Vama Devi one night
saw a snake slithering on the bed near his flank.
She woke him up and saved him from the impending
danger. As such, he was naming the new born as
Parshva (flank).
Prince Parshva was very handsome and intelligent.
His fame reached Kushasthalpur and princess Prabhavatti,
daughter of king Prasenjit, determined to become
his wife. Before a proposal for marriage could
be sent the king of Kalinga lay a seize of Kushasthalpur
and sought the hand of Prabhavati in marriage.
King Prasenjit, aware of the might of Yavanraj
sent a messenger to Varanasi for help. King Ashvasen
got irritated at the misconduct of Yavanraj and
command the army in this battle. Pshvasen was
well aware of the ability and prowess of prince
Parshva; he accepted proposal without any hesitation.
Before the prince started for the battle field
the king of gods sent a divine and air worthy
chariot for Parshva. After reaching the battle
field the and prior to giving the orders to attack,
Parshva sent a message to Yavanraj that now Prasenjit
was under the protection of king Ashvasen, and
as such he should break his seize of Kushasthalpur
or face the great army of Varanasi and divine
powers of Parshva. Although the youthful Yavanraj
and some of his younger ministers were provoked,
a senior minister informed him that the king of
gods himself sided Parshva. He not only had divine
powers but also the flying chariot of Indra. To
fight Parshva was to embrace certain defeat. Yavanraj
accepted the advice of the senior minister and
surrendered before prince Parshva without a fight.
He offered rich gifts to Parshva and became a
friend of Prasenjit.
Victorious Parshva Kumar returned
to Varanasi. King Prasenjit also came to Varanasi
with his daughter Prabhavati and requested king
Ashvasen to marry Parshva Kumar with Prabhavati.
Parshva was averse to the bond of marriage. However,
his parents persuaded him and he could not hurt
their feelings. He was married to Prabhavati but
led a simple and detached life.
One day prince Parshva was enjoying a view of the
town from the balcony of his palace. When he saw
groups of men and women, carrying items for worship,
passing by, he asked out of curiosity if it was
some day of religious ceremonies. His attendants
informed him that some mendicant named Kamath is
doing a harsh penance named Panchagni Tap (five
fire penance). The citizens are going to pay homage
to him with all these presents. Prince Parshva also
proceeded to witness this strange scene. As he was
endowed with three levels of knowledge since birth,
Parshva perceived everything worth knowing about
this person at once. This was the same being that
had been nurturing an intense feeling of vengeance
for him for many births. After completing his age
in the hell he was born in a poor family. Driven
by hunger and poverty he had become a mendicant
and was influencing the ignorant masses with his
harsh but ill conceived penance.
When prince Parshva came
near the mendicant he saw that some logs of wood
were burning all around the mendicant. Inside
one of the logs was a pair of serpents, writhing
in pain due to the intense heat of the burning
flames. Moved by a feeling of compassion the prince
said to the mendicant, "Burning a five sensed
being in fire, what sort of self improvement do
you strive for?" The mendicant replied angrily,
"Prince! You are a child; go and enjoy your princely
games. It is mendicants like me who know about
religion not you. How can you claim that some
being is burning in the fire around me?"
All the efforts to persuade him that a pair of
serpents was burning in the fire went in vain.
Parshva then ordered his attendants to draw the
specific log aside and split it. As soon as the
attendants did that, a pair of serpents, partially
scorched, fell on the ground writhing in pain.
Realizing that they were about to die, prince
Parshva said to them that they should not be annoyed
with the ignorant mendicant and should remain
equanimous during the last moments of their lives.
He also recited the Namokar Mantra. As a result
of equanimous thoughts and hearing the Namokar
Mantra, after death the pair was born as the king
and queen of the gods of the Nag Kumar clan (Dharanendra
and Padmavati).
The mendicant became angry and kept on adding
more fuel to the fire of vengeance. After death
he reincarnated as the evil god Meghmali.
This incident inspired Parshva Kumar to step on
the right path and show the path to the masses
misled by such ignorant hypocrites. While he was
contemplating this, he one day went to garden
and chanced to see some frescoes about the incidents
of life of Bhagavan Arishtanemi. These vivid paintings
pushed him to the decision of becoming an ascetic.
He sought permission of his father and started
the year long charity. On the eleventh day of
the dark half of the month of Paush he became
an ascetic under an Ashok tree.
One day Parshva-muni was standing in meditation
in Kaushamv jungle. God Dharanendra arrived there
to pay homage. When he saw scorching sun rays falling
on the meditating ascetic, he covered Parshva-muni
with canopy of snake hoods. It is said that this
area later became famous as Ahichhatra.
One day Parshva-muni was standing in meditation
under a banyan tree in an Ashram outside a village.
The evil god Meghamali, the Kamath of earlier birth,
through his evil powers became aware of this. Driven
by the animosity of earlier births, Meghamali arrived
at the spot where Parshva-muni his extremely loud
and fearsome laughter. When Parshva-muni remained
unmoved, Meghmali inflicted pain on him by attacking
in the form of various animals. Parshva-muni tolerated
all these afflictions with equanimity. Meghamli’s
anger reached its peak.
Now he created dark and dense clouds in the skies.
The sky was completely covered by dark rain-bearing
clouds. With fearsome rumbling and thunder and lightening
it started raining heavily. Meghamali caused so
much rain that it flooded the whole area. Parshva-muni
tolerated the torment of this torrential rain like
the Meru mountain. The water level rose and it reached
the tip of Parshvanath’s nose. He was still unmoved
in his meditation. At this peak of the affliction,
the throne of god Dharanendra trembled. He came
to know about the incident through his divine powers
and reached the spot with Padmavati. One of these
snake-gods created a platform under the feet of
Parshva-muni and the other a canopy of its multiple
hoods over hid head. Dharanendra admonished Meghamali
who then fell at the feet of Parshva-muni and sought
his forgiveness.
After eighty three days of penance and spiritual
practices Parshva-muni came to Ashrampad garden
in Varanasi and stood in meditation under a Dharanendra
tree. With fast increasing purity he attained omniscience
on the fourth day of the dark half of the month
of Chaitra. The gods created the divine pavilion.
Bhagavan Parshvanath gave his first discourse on
the form of religion. He propagated the four dimensional
religion(Ahimsa, truth, non-stealing and non-possession)
for upliftment of the soul.
Inspired by the discourse of Bhagavan Parshvanath,
many members of his family including his father
Ashvasen, mother Vama Devi, and wife Prabhavati
took Diksha from him. Many other princes and scholars
including the famous Vedic scholar Shubhdatta also
took Diksha after hearing to his discourse. Bhagavan
Parshvanath established the four pronged religious
organization. He had eight chief disciples with
Shubgdatta being the first and most senior.
Although no detailed mention is available about
the areas visited by Bhagavan Parshvanath, it can
be surmised from various incidents and related stories
that he covered a considerably wide area of the
subcontinent. It appears that he visited Kashi-kaushal
(Uttar Pradesh), Nepal, Bang (Bengal), Kalinga (Orissa),
Anga (Magadh), Vidarbh, Konkan, Saurashtra etc.
Among his followers were Shakya Kings, rulers of
Magadh (grandfather and father of king Shrenik)
and many others.
206 Spinsters
In Jain scriptures there is a mention of an incident
of Bhagavan Parshvanath’s period that has not been
much talked about. It is the initiation of 206 old
spinsters in his ascetic organization. At different
times many old spinsters from merchant families
from a number of towns took Kiksha into Bhagavan
Parshvanath’s organization and indulged in spiritual
practices. But due to some faults in minor codes
of discipline and death before doing required corrective
self-analysis they reincarnated as queens of lesser
gods like Chamarendra, Balindra, Vyantarendra etc.
At the time of Bhagavan Mahavir’s divine pavilion
creation they came for the Darshan (paying homage
in person) and displayed their divine glamour and
grandeur just like the sun god. What to talk of
the common audience when even Ganadhar Gautam became
spellbound at this heavenly display. When Gautam
asked Bhagavan Mahavir about these goddesses he
explained these goddesses acquired these unique
divine powers as a result of their practices of
penance and discipline when they were the old-spinster
ascetics in Bhagavan Parshvanath’s order.
All these references indicate that even during the
period of Bhagavan Mahavir the faith and devotion
for Bhagavan Parshvanath was wide spread.
The masses strongly believed
that remembering the name of Bhagavan Parshvanath
was the panacea for all troubles as well as the
means of success. This was the reason that in Bhagavan
Mahavir’s time Bhagavan Parshvanath was popularly
known as "Purushadaniya".
Many scholars are of the opinion that the Chaturyam
Dharm (the four dimensional religion) was the leading
and prominent religion in whole of India during
that period. The Buddha also got initiated into
this school in the early part of his spiritual life.
Later he evolved and propagated his eight pronged
religion out of this only.
Bhagavan Parshvanath was a householder for thirty
years and then an ascetic for seventy years. When
he was 100 years old he got liberated on the fifth
day of the bright half of the month of Shravan at
Sammetshikhar.
It is believed that the time span between the
Nirvana of Bhagavan Parshvanath and Bhagavan Mahavir’s
launching of his own school was about 250 years.
There is a mention of four prominent leaders of
Bhagavan Parshvanath’s school:-
1. Ganadhar Shubhdatta (Shumbh)
2. Arya Haridatta
3. Acharya Samudra Suri
4. Arya Keshi Shraman
The last one is believed to have existed between
166 to 250 years after the Nirvana of Bhagavan Parshvanath.
Arya Keshi Shraman was a forceful Acharya. The staunch
non-believer king Pradeshi became a highly devoted
Jain Shravak under his influence only. There were
nine groups of five hundred ascetics each, in the
large religious organization headed by Keshi-muni.
These groups worked in far fling areas like Tailang
(Andhra), Konkan and Maharashtra. He himself wandered
in the Magadh area with one thousand ascetics.
