1. Twenty- four Tirthankaras cut into a boulder in two rows. Near Gingee, South Arcot, Tamilnadu, fifth/sixth century.

The universe, according to Jaina teaching, has no beginning and no end. Time is an unbroken and never- ending succession of cosmic cycles, each of which consist of an upward swing named utsarpini and a downward one called avasarpini. During the last phase of each downward wing as well as during the final sage of each upward half-cycle the religions of the tirthankaras gradually loses its influence upon the people to the extent of total oblivion. The reason given for this state of change is the progressing deterioration of living conditions during the latter part of the downward half cycle and the ease with which one can satisfy all one’s desires in the last phase of the up- ward swing Then during the middle phases of every succeeding half-cycle, again twenty-four Tirthankaras are born who once more revive the religion of ahimsa. In the current downward swing. Rishabhanatha was the first and Mahavira the last Tirthankara.

 

Illustration 2 (below) gives the names and cognizances of the twenty-four Jinas of our era. The drawings follow the Shvetambara tradition as represented in the left column of the text. The method of marking the image of a Jina by a symbol carved below the figure was developed in the fifth/sixth centuries. In the beginning, it was almost exclusively practised by the Digambaras (and even there not regularly), but since the eleventh/twelfth centuries the device is also found in the art of the shvetambaras.