Lord Parsvanath, the 23rd Tirthankara

Lord Parsvanath, who immediately preceded Mahavir, is acknowledged as a historical person of importance. He was the 23^rd  tirthankara of the present avasarpini time cycle according to Jain cosmology. He is thought to be the pathfinder of Jainism as a religion. He was born around 717 BC, which is 273years before the birth of Mahavir, the 24th tirthankara. The Jain sources place him between 9^th and 8^th centuries BCE. 

The complexion of Parsvanath is green and his symbol is snake. The chaitya tree under which he got omniscience is dhataki.

Parsvanath had nine previous incarnations out of which 3^rd, 5^th, 7^th and 9^th were in Devlok. In the 1^st incarnation, Parsvanath was born as the son of royal priest Viswabhumi. Here his name was Marubhuti. He had an elder brother Kamath who had a cruel, wicked character and was always envying Marubhuti. It is found that Kamath was the cause of death in all the incarnations of Marubhuti. In the 2^nd incarnation Marubhuti was born as an elephant and died from snake bite of Kamath. In the 4^th incarnation, the name was Kiranbeg. He became mendicant after giving the throne to his son. In the 6^th incarnation, the name was Vajranabha. He became mendicant under the guidance of muni Ksemankara. In the 8^th incarnation, he was Subarnabahu, he became Chakravarti for his intelligence, ruling power and strength. He also in his later age transferred his throne to his son and became mendicant and practised severe penance in the standing posture (kayotsarga).

Parsva spent a time span of 20 sagaropamas in the heaven, the location named Pranata-Kalpa before descending on earth. He entered into the womb of Vama Devi, wife of king Asvasena in the city of Varanasi, in the region named Bharatvarsha and the continent named Jambudvipa. Such transformation happened in the month of Chaitra (March-April) on the fourth day of the dark cycle of moon. On this day, moon was in the constellation of Visakha. The celebrated Arhat Parsva was possessing three types of before he was born. They are: “I shall descend”, “I am descending”, and “I have descended” [Kalpasutra translated by K.C.Lalwani].

While in the womb, queen Vama Devi was granted with fourteen wonderful dreams which always foretell the birth of a tirthankara. She, in her dream, saw a black serpent crawling by her side. Therefore, his father gave him the name of Parsva (side). Throughout his life, Parsvanath was connected with snakes. Once, during his youthful days, he rescued a pair of serpents from the fire. A Brahman ascetic was kindling a fire without noticing the snakes inside the log of woods. When Parsvanath noticed, he took out the snake which was half burnt and died thereafter.

After completion of 9 months and 71/2 day-nights, Parsva was born healthy in the month of Pausa (December-January) on the tenth day of the dark half of moon at midnight. The birth time coincided with the moon in visakha constellation. Immediately after he was born, many gods and goddesses arrived at the birth place for celebration. The whole place became bright with divine light.

When Parsva Kumar became youth, he got married to Prabhavati Devi, daughter of King Prasenjit of Kushasthalpur. Parsvanath was intelligent, good looking, self-controlled and having auspicious marks on his body. He was a brave warrior and defeated the Yavana king of Kalinga. He spent 30yrs of his early days with the family. He was having unprecedented, unlimited and unimpeded knowledge about all the texts available during his time. When Parsvanath perceived that the time has come for renunciation, he started distributing his wealth to the needy people and thereafter he left the palace. On the eleventh day of the dark half of moon in the month of Pausa, in early hours of the day, he left the palace and moved out of the city of Varanasi. Outside the city, there was a park, named Asramapada where stood the asoka tree. On arriving at the park, Parsvanath took off his clothes and ornaments and wore the dress of a monk. Then he tonsured his head in five handfuls and took the vow that he will take food without water once in four days. After doing extensive meditation and following hardship he obtained omniscience after 83 days. On the 84^th day, in the first month of summer (chaitra), in the first fortnight, on the fourth day of the dark half of moon under the dhataki tree near Varanasi he attained the supreme knowledge keval jnan and became Arhat Parsvanath. 

While Parsvanath was practising austerities to gain omniscience, his enemy Kamath of the previous birth tried to distract his mind and caused a heavy downpour of rain to fall on him. Kamath was no one else but the Brahmin ascetic whose carelessness in the previous incarnation had caused the death of the poor snakes. The snake, who in this birth had become god Dharanendra, held a serpent’s hood over the ascetic Parsva and sheltered him like an umbrella. This is the reason of Parsvanath’s symbol of snake and the idol with serpent’s head as the hood.

Lord Parsvanath became the head of a large community of followers including his mother and wife. He preached his doctrines for seventy years, until at last his karma was exhausted. At the age of 100 years, he attained nirvana on Sammed Shikhar. Mount SammedShikhar is situated in the state of Jharkhand, India. Mount Sammed Shikhar is renamed as Mount of Parsvanath or Parasnath hill and is a sacred destination for all the Jain pilgrims.

Lord Parsvanath made four vows for the members of his community. They are: not to kill any jiva, not to speak lie, not to steal and not to own property. He had eight ganas and eight ganadharas. They were: Subhadutta, Asvaghosa, Vashistha, Brahmachari, Saumya, Sridhara, Virabhadra and Yashasvi. Parsvanath had an excellent community of 16000 sramanas with Aryadatta at their head, 38000 nuns with Puspachula at their head, 164000 male followers with Subrata at their head, 327000 female followers with Sunanda at their head. He also had a community of 350 monks who were the masters of the 14 purvas, 1400 monks who possessed avadhi knowledge, 100 possessed keval knowledge and many others.

Dharanendra  was the male messenger deity and Padmavati was the female messenger deity of Lord Parsvanath.