Ancient history of India reveals that there were two parallel traditions in India, viz. Vedic and Sramanic. The Sramana Tradition includes Jainism, Buddhism and others such as the Ajivikas and Ajtianas. Jain religious tradition is one of the oldest living religions of India. Historicity of 24th Tirthankara Mahavira in sixth century BCE is well established. The Jain records mention the name of 23 tirthankaras before Mahavira. Among them Parsvanatha was the 23rd and Neminatha was the 22nd.
Parsvanatha is now acknowledged as a historical figure by a number of scholars. The existence of Parsva’s Order in Mahavira’s time is recorded as a discussion between the followers of Parsva (caturyama) and those of Mahavira (pancayama) in the Uttara-adhyayanasiitra. Keeping this fact in mind, International School for Jain Studies (ISJS) in association with the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORT) organized a two-day International Seminar on “Traces of Sramana Tradition (with special reference to Jainism): Prior to 650 BCE” on 5-6 October 2019 in Pune. This book contains 13 selected papers presented in this seminar exploring the available archaeological, cultural, social and literary evidences to substantiate the existence of Jain tradition before 650 BCE.