Avasarpiṇī
Six ages in which everything good gets smaller. We are in the fifth of them.
Suṣamā-suṣamā (4 crore-crore sāgaropama), Suṣamā (3), Suṣamā-duḥṣamā (2), Duḥṣamā-suṣamā (1 less 42,000 years), Duḥṣamā (21,000 years), Duḥṣamā-duḥṣamā (21,000 years).
The first three are lands of enjoyment in effect: twin births, kalpavṛkṣa, no work, no religion. The change comes in the third, when the wishing-trees begin to fail and Ṛṣabhanātha teaches agriculture, fire, writing, arithmetic, pottery and kingship. The fourth ara is the age of Tīrthaṅkaras — all twenty-four of ours belong to it except the very end of Mahāvīra's life.
The fifth is ours. Teaching survives, texts survive, monks and nuns survive, but no new Tīrthaṅkara is born and no one attains liberation from Bharat during it. The sixth is worse: the tradition describes the Jain teaching disappearing entirely, and people sheltering in caves along the Gaṅgā.
Measurements and counts
| Aras | 6 |
|---|---|
| Total length | 10 crore-crore sāgaropama |
| 1 Suṣamā-suṣamā | 4 crore-crore sāgar. |
| 2 Suṣamā | 3 crore-crore sāgar. |
| 3 Suṣamā-duḥṣamā | 2 crore-crore sāgar. |
| 4 Duḥṣamā-suṣamā | 1 crore-crore less 42,000 yrs |
| 5 Duḥṣamā | 21,000 years |
| 6 Duḥṣamā-duḥṣamā | 21,000 years |