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Parshvanatha
Also Known As Parshva · Parasnath · Parshvanath · Parasnatha (Sanskrit) The spelling behind Parasnath Hill, the Shikharji pilgrimage site.
Tirthankaras
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Parshvanatha (or Parshva) is the twenty-third Tirthankara of Jainism and the earliest of the ford-makers generally accepted by historians as a real person, conventionally placed in the ninth to seventh centuries BCE (Jain tradition dates him 877-777 BCE, some two and a half centuries before Mahavira). Said to have been a prince of Varanasi who renounced the world to seek liberation, he is remembered as teaching a fourfold restraint, non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing and non-possession, to which Mahavira would later add the explicit vow of celibacy. He is among the most widely worshipped of the Tirthankaras, depicted in iconography sheltered by the hood of a many-headed serpent, and Jains venerate him as a fully liberated soul whose community Mahavira reformed and carried forward.
Facts
Life
Lifespan or FloruitThis read 872 BCE, five years off Parshvanatha's own entity description, which gives the traditional Jain dating as 877 to 777 BCE. Corrected to match, and to match the traditional Svetambara chronology as given in Jain-studies scholarship. Lifespan or FloruitThis read 772 BCE, five years off Parshvanatha's own entity description, which gives the traditional Jain dating as 877 to 777 BCE. Corrected to match, and to match the traditional Svetambara chronology as given in Jain-studies scholarship. Manner of DeathAttained liberation (moksha) 2Tradition: Jainism Origins
Place of OriginVaranasi, as Jain tradition places him 2 Disputed
HistoricityPaul Dundas's The Jains (Routledge, 2002) examines the evidentiary basis for Parshvanatha's historicity, the twenty-third of the Jain tirthankaras, and finds the evidence entirely internal to the Jain tradition's own scriptural and hagiographical corpus, with no independent external attestation. Dundas records that among the tirthankaras this makes Parshvanatha the earliest figure for whom a historical existence is nonetheless considered plausible by scholars, unlike his predecessors in the Jain lineage, whose historicity is not seriously entertained at all. Identity
PositionTwenty-third of the twenty-four Tirthankaras of the present half-cycle 1Tradition: Jainism The sequence of twenty-four is fixed and identical in the Digambara and Svetambara canons. SymbolSerpent, the hooded cobra 1Tradition: Jainism The lanchana, the emblem carved beneath the figure on images and shrines. Digambara and Svetambara give the same emblem here. Position Profile
Key TextThe Kalpa Sutra's Jina-caritra section is the traditional Svetambara account of his life and lineage as the twenty-third Tirthankara of the present age. 3 Learn More
The Earliest Ford-Maker History Reaches
Parshvanatha (or Parshva) is the twenty-third Tirthankara and the earliest of the ford-makers whom historians are generally willing to accept as a real person. He is conventionally placed in the ninth to seventh centuries BCE; Jain tradition dates him 877-777 BCE, some two and a half centuries before Mahavira. With Parshva, in other words, the sequence of ford-makers passes from Jain sacred cosmology into the edge of documented history, though even here the detail of his life remains traditional rather than independently attested.
The tradition remembers him as a prince of Varanasi (Kashi), son of King Ashvasena and Queen Vama, who renounced his rank to seek liberation. His emblem is the serpent. The distinction between him and the twenty-two ford-makers before him is worth keeping clear: those are figures of Jain tradition and cosmology, set in a legendary antiquity; Parshva stands where tradition and history begin to meet.
The Fourfold Restraint, and the Nirgranthas
Parshva is remembered as teaching a fourfold restraint (chaturyama): non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, and non-possession. His followers were known as the Nirgranthas, "the unbound" or "those without knots", a name that attaches to the Jain community in the earliest external references to it.
The relation between Parshva's teaching and Mahavira's is one of the more historically substantial points in Jain tradition. Mahavira, born some generations later into a family that followed Parshva's path, is understood to have reformed and extended that older tradition, adding to the four restraints the explicit fifth vow of celibacy (brahmacharya) and giving Jain monastic life its stricter, definitive form. The Svetambara canon preserves, in the Kesi-Gautama dialogue, an account of followers of the two teachers reconciling the difference between four vows and five, a text scholars read as a memory of the actual continuity between Parshva's community and Mahavira's.
The Serpent-Hooded Jina
Parshva is the most readily recognised of all the Tirthankaras in art, for he is almost always shown sheltered by the hood of a many-headed serpent (commonly seven-headed). The image illustrates a story of his ascetic career: as Parshva sat in deep meditation, an enemy from a former life, in the accounts the demon or ascetic Kamatha (Meghamalin), loosed a violent storm to break his concentration, and the serpent-king Dharanendra, with his queen Padmavati, rose up to shield the motionless Jina with his hoods. The serpent canopy became his fixed iconographic mark, and his emblem is likewise the snake.
He is among the most widely worshipped of the ford-makers in living Jain practice, and Jains hold that he attained final liberation at Sammeta Shikhar, the great pilgrimage hill in Jharkhand that bears his name, Parasnath. Venerated as a fully liberated soul whose community Mahavira carried forward, Parshva stands at the hinge where Jain sacred history opens into the historical.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Addressed By
A Sanskrit devotional hymn addressed to Parshvanatha, the twenty-third Tirthankara.
Associated With
This source names Parshvanatha directly: "this atlas's existing Padmavati guards Parshvanatha."
This source names Parshvanatha directly: "A Wikipedia article on Parshvanatha, the 23rd of the 24 Tirthankaras of Jainism and the earliest Tirthankara generally acknowledged by historians as a historical figure, though his exact dates are..."
This source names Parshvanatha directly: "The museum's own gallery text identifies the figure as Suparshvanatha, the seventh Tirthankara, correcting an earlier identification as Parshvanatha."
This source names Parshvanatha directly: "The museum's own gallery text states this sculpture represents Suparshvanatha, the seventh jina, correcting an earlier identification as Parshvanatha."
Belongs to Tradition
Depicted In
The sculpture's directly named subject per the museum's own title, a standing Gupta-period figure of the 23rd Tirthankara, confirmed by the corroborating Wikipedia record on his identity and iconography.
Instance Of
Number 23 of the twenty-four Tirthankaras of the present half-cycle.
Patron Of
Padmavati is the attendant yakshi deity of Parshvanatha, the twenty third Tirthankara, invoked for worldly protection rather than liberation.
Succeeded By
Mahavira follows Parshvanatha in the sequence of twenty-four, at position 24.
Successor Of
Parshvanatha follows Neminatha in the sequence of twenty-four, at position 23.
Sources
1. The Jains
Paul Dundas, Routledge, 2002Parshva, the historical predecessorView the Source 1. The Jains
Paul Dundas, Routledge, 2002Parshva as the earliest historically accepted ford-makerView the Source 2. The Jaina Path of Purification
Padmanabh S. Jaini, University of California Press, 1979Parshva and the fourfold restraintView the Source 2. The Jaina Path of Purification
Padmanabh S. Jaini, University of California Press, 1979The chaturyama, the Nirgranthas, and serpent iconographyView the Source 3. Kalpa Sutra
The Svetambara Jain Agamas
Anonymous (Jain tradition)The Kesi-Gautama dialogue on four vows and fiveView the Source Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005View the Source Parshvanatha (Wikipedia)
WikipediaDepicted In: Standing Jain Tirthankara ParshvanathaQuote, Depicted In: Standing Jain Tirthankara Parshvanatha
Parshvanatha is the 23rd of the 24 tirthankaras and the earliest Jaina tirthankara who is acknowledged as a historical figure.
Open Questions (1 open question)
Which of the twenty four Tirthankaras are historically attested?
Critical scholarship accepts Parshvanatha and Mahavira as historical figures. Jain tradition holds all twenty four to be historical teachers. For the remaining twenty two there is no independent attestation, so a single answer applied across the group would misdescribe most of it in one direction or the other.
What would resolve this Independent attestation for any individual Tirthankara beyond the two, whether inscriptional, textual from outside the tradition, or archaeological.
Indology, Jain studies, and South Asian archaeology.Paul Dundas, The Jains
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