Philosophies of India

SR No.: 007309
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Heinrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell
Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd
Publication Year: 1953
Total Pages: 709
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 34 MB

Page 246

THE MAKERS OF THE CROSSING distinguishing emblem is the Hindu battle-trumpet, the conctishell, and whose iconographic color is black.45 His existence is not substantiated through historical records, but only reflected through legendary accounts, which link him with the heroes of that feudal period of Indo-Aryan chivalry depicted in the Mahābhārata and the Krsna legend. He is described as a first cousin of Krşņa; his father, Samudravijaya ("Conqueror of the Whole Earth, as far as to the Shores of the Oceans”), having been the brother of Kțşņa's father, Vasudeva. Since he is heterodox, 46 he is ignored by the Hindu Kṛṣṇa cycle, which, in spite of its own heterodox traits, has become incorporated in the great body of orthodox legend; but the Jainas claim that Neminātha was far superior to Kșşņa both in physical prowess and in intellectual attainments. His unostentatious, mild disposition, as well as his rejection of luxury and adoption of the ascetic life, are depicted in such a way as to show him to have been exactly the reverse of Krşņa. His full name, Aristanemi, is an epithet of the sun-wheel or the sun-chariot, "the felly of whose wheel (nemi) is undamaged (arista), i.e. indestructible," and thus suggests that he belonged to the ancient Solar Dynasty.47
With this Tirthankara, Jaina tradition breaks beyond the bounds of recorded history into the reaches of the mythological past. And yet it does not follow that the historian would be justified in saying that some great renewer and teacher of the Jaina faith--perhaps named Arișțanemi-did not precede Pārs. vanātha. We are simply not in a position to know how far back
serpent-cycle of time (the world-bounding serpent, biting its own tail) will go on revolving through these alternating "ascending" and "descending" periods forever.
45 Just as each of the identical Tirthankaras has a distinguishing emblem (cf. supra, p. 213). so also a color. That of Mahavira, whose animal is the lion, is golden; that of Pārsvanātha, blue (cf. Jacobi, loc. cit., p. 166).
46 Cf. supra. p. 60, Editor's note. 47 Cf. supra, p. 106.
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