Inspired by the discourse of Lord Parshvanath, many members of his family

including his father Ashvasen, mother Vama Devi and wife Prabhavati
renounced the mundane life. Many other princes and scholars including the
famous Vedic scholar Shubhdatta also took renunciation after hearing to his
magic discourse. Lord 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 Lord

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 (in Gujarat) etc.
Among his followers were Shakya Kings, rulers of Magadh (grandfather and
father of king Shrenik) and many others.

Even during the period of Lord Mahavir (the 24th Tirthankar) the faith and
devotion for Lord Parshvanath was wide spread. The masses strongly
believed that remembering the name of Lord Parshvanath was the panacea
for all troubles as well as the means of success. This was the reason that in
Lord Mahavir’s time Lord 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. Lord 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.

Lord 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 Sammet Shikhar Mountain.

It is believed that the time span between the Nirvana of Lord Parshvanath
and Lord Mahavir’s launching of his own school was about 250 years. There is
a mention of four prominent leaders of Lord Parshvanath’s school:
1. Disciple 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 Lord Parshvanath. Arya Keshi Shraman was a forceful Acharya.
The staunch non-believer king Pradeshi became a highly devoted Jain house-
holder 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.

Posted by Rahul Zota at 5:33 AM

Labels: Lord Buddha, Lord Mahavir, Lord Neminath, Lord Parshva, Maha
Videha, Navkar Mantra, Omniscience, Tirthankar