Jainism's 24 ford-makers: only the last two are accepted as historical
A tirthankara, in Jain belief, is a ford-maker who builds a crossing over the endless river of rebirth for others to follow. Tradition counts 24 of them in each half of a cosmic time cycle. Historians broadly accept just two as real people: Parshvanatha and Mahavira.
Jain cosmology treats time as a wheel with no start or end, turning through an ascending half and a descending half; the descending half is said to be the present. Exactly 24 tirthankaras appear in each half, and infinitely many have come before. Each one first conquers inner enemies such as anger, pride, attachment and greed, becoming a Jina, or victor. After reaching kevala jnana, complete omniscience, the tirthankara preaches and founds a fourfold community of monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen.
Scholars treat Parshvanatha, the 23rd, as a historical figure of roughly the 9th or 8th century BCE, a teacher of a fourfold restraint. Mahavira, the 24th, traditionally dated 599 to 527 BCE, is seen as the reformer who rebuilt the community on that earlier foundation and added celibacy as a fifth great vow. The other 22 belong to sacred history on vast, non-historical timescales, and texts such as the Kalpa Sutra tell their lives to a set pattern: royal birth, worldly life, renunciation, austerity, omniscience and liberation.
Rishabhanatha, the first of the present cycle, is honoured as the founder of civilisation itself, teaching farming, law and social order. Some scholars have wondered whether nude standing figures and bull motifs on Indus Valley seals hint at an early Rishabha cult, but the idea is unproven. Tradition also says 20 tirthankaras reached final liberation on Mount Shikharji in today's Jharkhand, while Mahavira did so at Pawapuri near Patna.
Every tirthankara's life is marked by five auspicious events: conception, birth, renunciation, omniscience and final release. After omniscience, heavenly beings are said to build a samavasarana, a three-tiered preaching hall of silver, gold and gems, where gods, humans and animals gather and each hears the sermon in their own language. A major Jain text, the Tattvartha Sutra, lists 16 practices that bind the special karma which lifts a soul to this status, and Jains hold that a tirthankara's grace reaches all living beings, whatever their faith.
Source: Tirthankara
