Arya Bhadrabahu

Author(s): M A Dhaky
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Ārya Bhadrabāhu
M. A. Dhaky
Preliminary Considerations
From at least the post-Gupta period, the patriarch Arya Bhadrabāhu (c. B.C. 325-297) has been held in the highest esteem and unswerving reverence by the principal Jaina sects, the designation 'Jaina' anciently was known as "Nirgrantha.' The notices on Bhadrabāhu largely hail from the literature of the two surviving major sects of the Nirgrantha-darśana, Svetāmbara and Digambara. Bhadrabāhu is reckoned and adored by both sects as the last caturdaśapūrvadhara' as well as the śruta-kevali?. And yet the glaring fact remains that he very largely has remained an illusive figure. The Jaina writers of our own times possess a strong, even an obsessive, bias for his supposedly inestimable greatness. As a result, they failed to see through the veil of illusion created by some stray but relatively late--some contradictory and confused-literary and inscriptional references to him and likewise could not escape the spell of ethos of the dazzling aura they themselves projected around him. Some of them explicitly believed (and still believe) in all that was attributed to him in the past as an invariate fact, a tangible and truthful reality. The high-pitched reverential attitude adopted for Bhadrabähu has not only hindered an objective approach toward searching and reconstructing his realistic image, not even a sketchy history based on available evidentiary facts, but also, as its consequence, has disallowed taking dispassionate estimation of him and his supposed contributions. This happening, in essence and so far, has led to preclude examining the very basis on which the edifice of esteem for him was built. Likewise, excepting for one category of literature, the niryuktis, very little effort had been made in the past toward checking the veracity of the claim for what are looked upon as the works authored by him in the Northern Nirgrantha (Svetāmbara) tradition?

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The Northern as well as the Southern Nirgrantha Church has preserved only small bits of information on Bhadrabāhu, some seeming reliable, some probable or plausible, some undoubtedly falling in the category of doubtful,' and still others that frankly are at variance with the other recorded facts as well as internal evidence present in his supposed works and hence clearly undependable. The present article intends to focus critically on the image of Bhadrabāhu as it emerges through the light cast by the evidence preserved within the relatively earlier and more trustworthy sources, though later writings will not be neglected : This evidence, in point of fact, lead to some hitherto unsuspected angles and consequently to surprising implications and conclusions. Some among the available Northern Nirgrantha sources relatively are earlier than the known Southern : hence these will be noticed here first, followed by the Southern, and next the information gathered from both sources will be compared, evaluated, integrated wherever plausible, and used in the discussions to follow. And finally will be presented the conclusions that may flow therefrom.
Northern Nirgrantha literary sources on Bhadrabāhu
The earliest extant source on Bhadrabāhu is the Sthaviravali or hagiological list of pontiffs incorporated in the Paryusanā-kalpa. In its present shape, it was compiled partly from the preëxisting lists and partly completed in V.N.S. 980/993 or A. D. 503 or 5164. The Sthavirāvali, in point of fact, is the result of a five-phase growth and correspondingly contains portions of different periods, the portion forming Phase I begins its statement, after a brief introduction, with the ganadhara-apostle Sudharmā—the direct disciple of Arhat Vardhamāna alias Jina Mahävīra—and next serially follow the names of four patriarchs as successors, the list terminating with the fifth pontiff Arya Yasobhadra (c. B.C. 350-325) who, as we learn from the Sthavirávali's Phase 2 portion, was the preceptor/guru of Arya Sambhūtavijaya and of Arya Bhadrabahu. The Phase I portion, predictably, may have been composed in a still older linguistic form as well as, perhaps, a little more archaic stylistic mould, in Ardhamāgadhi, plausibly at the end of the first Synod convoked in Pataliputra (in or before B.C. 300) for the redaction, the first in recorded history, of the Nirgrantha śruta/ scripture/ canon after the end of a long draught* in Madhyadeśa. The Phase 2 of
Its duration is reported, in some sources to be discussed, of 12 years.

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the Sthaviravali embodies a portion which, in point of fact, came from another and, seemingly, somewhat later source. It represents a shorter version (samkṣipta vācanā), as against the much more elaborate Phase 3 portion (vistṛta vācana), commencing as it does from Arya Yasobhadra and his two aforenoted disciples and extending further down, through six successive pontiffs, to Arya Vajra's disciple Arya Vajrasena and ending with the names of the latter pontiff's four disciples (c. 1st cent. A.D.). But, it is the aforenoted Phase 3 portion, which covers an enlarged version of the second, is very, very important, because it, for the first time, gives detailed denominations along with the succinct indications on the origination of the various ganas (cohorts), their śäkhas (branches), and their kulas (regional and clanal groups), all of these being the subdivisions formed by the specific bands of mendicants. Arguably, the starting point for these group-proliferations temporally must be located a few decades after Arya Bhadrabahu from whose senior disciple Godāsa, the earliest and hence the very first gana of the Nirgrantha monastic system is reported, as per the northern hagiological tradition, to have emanated. (This may have taken place some time in the latter half of B.C. the third century.) While the list of succession within this Phase 3 (which figures in several manuscripts of the Paryuṣaṇa-kalpa) terminates with Arya Phalgumitra (c. early 1st cent. A.D.), some mss. also contain a Phase 4 extension leading up to Arya Skandila (or Sandila)-the 17th pontiff in succession from Arya Phalgumitra-who presided over the Synod convened in Mathura in c. V. N. 830-840/A.D. 353-3637. These four successive sections of the sthaviravali are in prose and were dovetailed to form a single continuous text, largely in Ardhamâgadhi, by casting them into a homogeneous stylistic mould which doubtless reveals a few lately introduced linguistic affectations of the Mahārāṣṭrī Prakrit. The last, or Phase 5, which is the latest portion of the Sthavirāvalī, however, is in versified form and unambiguously is rendered in Mahārāṣṭrī Prakrit. It starts from Arya Phalgumitra and, after mentioning the 16th pontiff in succession, namely Arya Dharma who was the guru of Arya Skandila, switches over to Arya Jambu (apparently the confrère of Arya Skandila of whom it takes no notice) and next gives the names of six pontiffs in succession, the sixth being Devarddhi gani who chaired the Valabhi Synod II in A.D. 503, or, according to an alternative tradition, in A.D. 5169,
Jambu-jyoti

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the period when the Maitraka viceroy Dhruvasena I was governing from Valabhï in the Surāstra region on behalf of some imperial power, either Gupta or, perhaps, Vākāțakalo. For our purpose, only the second and the third Phase of the Sthavirávali are relevant; for it is these two which give some initial, though very succinct but the earliest and significant information on Bhadrabāhu.
The source of information, contemporaneous (or may be even earlier) in time, in the past, was the Gandikānuyoga of Ārya Śyāma I alias Ārya Kālaka I (c. 1st cent. B.C.-A.D.) which plausibly contained passages in a chapter (gandikä) that had dealt with Bhadrabāhu, namely the "Bhadrabāhu-gandikā," a section noted in a different context in the Samavāyānga-sūtra (147)'. This iatter agama, the fifth of the 12 argas, was updated (or rather recompiled with many additions, as a replacement palpably of an earlier shorter version)* in or soon after A.D. 363 and thus in the latter half of the last century of the Kuşāna rule in Mathurā. Regrettably, the Gandikānuyoga, like all other works of Arya Syāma, is for long lost12. It is, however, likely that, for a part of the information on Bhadrabahu in late Gupta agamic notices, the ultimate source may have been this work.
The source next in time is the Sthaviravali of the Nandisutra of Deva Vācaka (c. mid 5th cent. A.D. 13); but that work only briefly alludes to Bhadrabāhu and his gotra (familial lineage) and, in point of fact, adds nothing more to what is gleaned from the Phase 2 portion of the aforenoted Sthaviravali of the Paryusanā-kalpa.
After the Nandisutra, the works which mention Bhadrabāhu, in one or the other context, are the Uttarādhyayang-niryukti (C. A.D. 525 and later) 24, the Titthogāliya i.e. Tirthavakālika (or Tirthodgărika)-prakırnaka (c. mid 6th cent. A.D.)', the Vyavahāra-bhäsya (c. late 6th cent.):6, the Avasyakacürni (c. A.D. 600-650)"?, the Uttaradhyayana-cūrni (c. A.D. 650-700), and the Avasyaka-vrtti of Haribhadra súri (c. mid 8th cent. A.D.)'9. Among the medieval sources, the first is the Kahāvali of Bhadreśvara sūri (c. late 10th century)20. A fairly dependable medieval source, like the Parisista-parva (c. A.D. 1166) of Ācārya Hemacandra of Purnatalla-gaccha”), apparently
* Abhayadeva süri (latter half of the 11th century), in his commentary on
the Samavāyānga, refers to its shorter version which apparently was available in his time. I forego citing the source since it is a secondary point.

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M. A. Dhaky
Jambu-jyoti
is indebted, mainly indeed, to the aforenoted work for its information on Bhadrabāhu namely the Kahāvali and, to some extent, to the Tirthavakālika and the Avasyaka-curni, though for a few details, Hemacandra also may have consulted one or two other concise textual sources, including perhaps a Southern one.
Southern Nirgrantha Sources on Bhadrabāhu Unlike Northern and, importantly, the Southern sources also include epigraphical. Among the literary works—what have been looked upon by Western (particularly German) scholars as secondary, substitute, or surrogate āgamas, theĀrādhanā of Sivārya (c. early 6th cent.)22, and the Tiloyapannattī, (Trilokaprajñapti, assigned to c. mid 6th cent. A.D.) 23 are the earliest to have a bearing, in a small measure though, on Bhadrabāhu. Next comes the Harivamsa-purana of Jinasena of Punnāta Sangha (A.D. 783)24, the Dhavală-tīkā of Svāmī Vīrasena of Pancastūpānvaya (completed A.D. 816)25, as also the Arādhana-Kannada-tīkā (popularly known as Vadda Ārādhane26), now ascertained to be a work of Bhrājisnu (c. A.D. late 9th or early 10th cent.])27, and the Brhat-kathakośa (A.D. 931) of Harisena28 (who, too, like Jinasena, was a monk of the Punnáta Sangha29). All of these, in the Southern context, relatively are older and more useful among literary sources. Incidentally, also theBhāvasangraha of Pt. Vāmadeva (c. 16th cent.), the Bhadrabahu-carita of Ratnanandi (c. 16th cent. A. D.)30, the Munivamśābhyudaya of Cidānanda-Kavi (A. D. 1680), and the Ratnāvalikathākośa of Devacandra (A. D. 1838)* which contain overtly sectarian material and which, from their particular standpoint, orientation in thinking, liking, and hence the attitude adopted and predilections set, has been considered authoritative and used by some Digambara Jaina scholars.
As for the the epigraphical domain, it is restricted exclusively to Karnataka and, the earlier records there, happen to be the inscription no.1 (C. A. D.600)31 as well as no. 24 (c. mid 7th cent. A. D.)32 at the Cikkabeta or Candragiri, Śravanabelgola, are more ancient and, to a large extent, also crucial. Also are the two inscriptions from some site in the Srirangapattanam taluq (c. A.D.
*
The first, the third, and the fourth work, all very late, were not available to me for consultation. But, from their content known through others' writings, they all are, like Ratnanandi's work, highly sectarian.

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900). Moreover, the Śravanabelgola inscription no. 251 at the Bhadrabahu cave on Cikkabeța and datable to c. 11th cent. A. D., the two epigraphs from Humca (A.D.1075, 1077) and one other there datable to the c. 13th cent. A. D.33 are to some extent relevant to the discussions in the present context. All of these will be discussed in section VI where they have a direct pertinence.
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IV
The Deducible Facts from Sources
While focusing on this aspect, the first to be noticed, since more ancient, are the Northern sources34. The second Phase of the Sthaviravali of the Paryuṣaṇa-kalpa (c. 1st cent. A.D.) notices two disciples of Arya Yaśobhadra (the fourth patriarch after the apostle Sudharma), namely Arya Sambhūtavijaya and Arya Bhadrabahu as earlier stated. It next turns to Arya Sthulabhadra (the disciple of Ārya Sambhuta) and his seven successors up to Arya Vajrasena and next mentions the latter's four disciples. Hereunder I quote from the text (after removing the Mahārāṣtrī affectations and, as its consequence, restoring the original Ardhamāgadhi linguistic form) only that portion which has relevance to Bhadrabahu :
थेरस्स नं अज्जजसभद्दस्स तुंगियायनगुत्तस्स अंतेवासी दुबे थेरा- थेरे अज्जसम्भूतविजए माढरसगुत्ते, थेरे अज्जभद्दबाहु पाईनस गुत्ते ।
This statement reports that Bhadrabahu was the disciple of Arya Yaśobhadra and had belonged (prior to ordination) to the family having the Pracina-gotra, which, in essence, may imply that he belonged to the "Prācī" or eastern country35. The country immediately easterly in relation to Magadha is Varendra with Vanga including ancient Rāḍha (called Ladha in Magadhi), these being the major territories forming ancient (as well as undivided modern) Bengal. (The Nandi-sthavirâvali [c. A.D. 450], as remarked earlier, repeats this information36.)
The literary passage immediately next in sequence is the enlarged version of the hagiographical list-the Phase 3 of the Sthaviravali of the aforenoted Paryuṣanā-kalpa which thus runs :
थेरस्स नं अज्जजस भद्दस्स तुंगियायनगुत्तस्स इमो दो थेरा अन्तेवासी अहावच्चा अभिनाता हुत्था || तं जथा— थेरे अज्जभद्दबाहु पाईनसगुत्ते, थेरे अज्जसम्भूतविजए माढरसगुत्ते । थेरस्स नं अज्जभद्दबाहुस्स पाईनसगुत्तस्स इमे चत्तारि थेस अन्तेवासी अहावच्चा अभिन्नाता हुत्था । तं जथा --- थेरे गोदासे १, थेरे अग्गिदत्ते २ थेरे जन्नदत्ते ३, थेरे सोमदत्ते ४ कासवगुत्तेनं । थेरेहितो गोदासहिंतो कासवगत्तेहिंतो इत्थं नं

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Jambu-jyoti
गोदासगणे नामं गणे निग्गए, तस्स नं इमाओ चत्तारि साहाओ एवमाहिज्जंति। तं जथा—तामलित्तिया १, कोटिवस्सिया २, पोंडवद्धनिया ३, दासीखव्वड़िया ४॥
This passage gives more details on Bhadrabāhu. Besides repeating the information of the passage in the preceding Phase 2 portion, it further reports that he had four disciples : Godāsa, Agnidatta, Yajñadatta, and Somadatta, all of whom belonged to the Käsyapa-gotra. From the chief disciple Godása, a cohort of friars called 'Godāsa-gana' emerged; and, from this gana, had emanated four specific sākhās or branches of mendicants, namely the Tāmraliptikā, the Kotivarsīyā, the Paundravardhanikā, and the Dásīkarvatikā. Three of these sākhās evidently took their denominations after the contemporary towns of the following names—Tāmralipti (Tämluk), Kotivarsa (Kotipura?), and Pundravardhana (Pānduā), while Däsīkarvata is still unidentified though it may be conjectured that it was a smaller habitational settlement of the servant caste as its name suggests, very likely was located in Bengal and either had disappeared in the past or if it exists, today it may be known by some other appelation37. The three identifiable are, of course, ancient towns located in Bengal.
Bhadrabāhu's connection with Bengal is supported, in fact further confirmed, by notices, though late, inside the Southern sources. The Vadda Ārādhane tikā of Bhräjisnu reports that Bhadrabāhu was born in Kaundini in the Pundravardhana territory and was initiated by ācārya Govardhana38 And, Harisena (of the Punnāta Sangha) (A.D. 931), slightly differing from Bhräjisnu, mentions that Bhadrabāhu was born in Koripura/Korinagara situated in the Pundravardhana territory39. He was tought, groomed, and next initiated by the Caturdaśapūrvadhara Govardhana muni. Bhadrabảhu thus, and to all seeming, was a native of ancient Bengal, a conclusion to which the historian of eminence, R. C. Majumdar, earlier had reached but, his concerned publications are, at the moment, not available to me. And arguably, Bhadrabāhu's disciple Godāsa and his immediate disciples and in turn their hagiological descendents as well as followers, reported exclusively in the early Northern source, too, had hailed from Bengal as inferrable from the sakha-denominations that specifically, indeed indubitably, reveal connection with Bengal“.
These notices on Bhadrabahu and his disciples also raise some questions. First, why no ganas and their sākhā sub-orders emanated after the other

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three disciples of Bhadrabāhu. Generally speaking, as inferred from the further details given in the Sthavirävalī (Phase 3), in the palpably early stages of growth of the Northern Nirgrantha Church, the sub-orders of friars did sometimes originate from the confrères of the chief disciple of a pontiff : Second, what happened to the sub-orders of the Godāsa-gana; for nothing afterwards has been reported about them in the ecclesiastical or epigraphical records either, the latter largely are encountered in Mathurā. After the passage dwelling on Bhadrabāhu's disciples, the Sthavirávali takes up Sthūlabhadra, disciple of Bhadrabāhu's confrère Arya Sambhūta and, further onwards, gives particulars of Sthūlabhadra's descendents, indeed not for once returning to Bhadrabāhu's line, an omission the significance of which later will be discussed. The hagiographical position from Arhat Vardhamāna onwards and especially after Arya Jambů—the disciple of ganadhara Sudharmaand up to Bhadrabāhu and his disciples, according to the first three phases of the Sthavirāvali of the Paryusanā-kalpa, may be tabulated as follows:
Arhat Vardhamana (Preached c. B.C. 507-477)42
Ganadhara Gautama
Ganadhara Sudharmā
Arya Jambū
Arya Prabhava
Ārya Sayyambhava (or Svāyambhuva)
Ārya Yasobhadra
Arya Sambhūta
Ärya Bhadrabahu (C. B.C. 325-297)
Ārya Sthūlabhadra
Godāsa
Agnidatta
Yajñadatta
Somadatta

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Jambū-jyoti
The next source, which preserves a small piece of information on Bhadrabāhu, is the Uttarādhyayana-niryukti (c. A.D. 525). In this work it is reported that the four disciples of Bhadrabahu (the niryukti does not specify their names) died in peace in a cave at Vaibhāragiri near Rājagủha, having faced śīta parisaha, visitation of severe chillo3 :
राजगिहमि वयंसा सीसा चउरो उ भद्दबाहुस्स। वेभारगिरिगुहाए सीयपरिसया समाहिगया ।
-उत्तराध्ययननियुक्ति ९१ The Uttarādhyayana-niryukti's verse, in point of fact, clarifies the import of a relevant (and earlier) verse from the Maranavibhakti-prakirnaka (c. 2nd3rd cent. A.D.)44, which apparently alludes to this very incident although, like the Uttarādhyayana niryukti, it specifies no names of the friars involved : it does mention Rājagrha, but not the Vaibhāragiri cave there. Moreover, it does not specifically state that these four were the disciples of Bhadrabāhu :
रायगिहनिग्गया खलु पडिमापडिपन्नगा मुनीचउरो। सीत विहूय कमेणं पहरे पहरे गया सिद्धि ।
-मरणविभक्तिप्रकीर्णक ४८९ However, the combined information from the last two sources would lead to infer that, what was intended to be conveyed, is the death of the four disciples of Bhadrabahu due to the visitation of severe chill (on Vaibhāragiri) in Rājagrha. According to the Uttarādhyayana cürni (c. A.D. 675-700), these four disciples were of the Vanika (merchant) community and belonged to Rājag?ha45. But each one of them, according to this source, died at a different locale within Rājagrha46. These four disciples evidently were different, as will be shown, from the earlier four noted, beginning from Godāsa, in the Sthavinavali. We will look into other information in the post-niryukti literature as the discussion progresses.
Turning now to the Southern literary sources, the earliest two works which tabulate the spiritual lineage of Bhadrabāhu, namely the Trilokaprajñapti47 and the Sravanabelgola Inscription No. 148 are about five to three centuries and odd decades posterior to the relevant two earlier portions of the Sthavirāvalī of the Paryusana-kalpa cited in the foregoing discussion. And the two sources next in date, the Harivamsa-purana49 and the Dhavalä

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tīkās, largely follow the preceding two Southern sources, adding no new information. Keeping in view the temporal position of these sources, it is clear that the earliest is not earlier than mid sixth century, the earliest being the Trilokaprajñapti whose sectarial affiliation is, in fact, somewhat dubious since, like the agamas inherited by the Svetambara sect, it stipulates 12 instead of the 16 kalpas for the Kalpavāsī gods, the figure 16 otherwise is firmly held by the Digambara sect.
The Southern (and South affiliated) sources inter alia with some minor variations in a few nominal details, present the following pontifical sequence after Arhat Vardhamana's disciple and grand disciple, the apostles Sudharmä (Loharya in Southern version) and Jambus:
ŚB.Ins.No.1 Harivamsa-purana Dhavala-țīkā
(c. A.D. 600)
(A.D.783)
(A.D.816)
Loharya I
Loharya
Lohārya
Jambū
I
Visnu
Nandimitra
Trilokaprajñapti
(c. mid 6th cent. A.D.)
Loharya T Jambu
I Nandi
I Nandimitra
Govardhana I Bhadrabahu
1
Visakha
Jambu
T
Visnudeva

Aparajita
Govardhana
I Bhadrabāhu
Visakha
Jambū
1
Visnu
יד
Nandimitra
I
Aparajita
1 Govardhana
1 Bhadrabahu
Visakha
117

Govardhana
T
The confrontation of the Northern and the Southern hagiologies of Bhadrabahu reveal intriguing, even sharp differences between the two. Contrast on at least five points clearly are discernible: First, the Southern gurvāvalīs under reference do not prefix the honorific term "Arya" before the pontiffs' appellations; second, they take no notice of their gotras; third, they are silent on the names of the four disciples of Bhadrabahu; instead, only one name figures as Bhadrabähu's disciple, Viśäkha, not found in the northern list; fourth, and as a direct consequence of the third difference, the Godāsa-gana and its four śäkhās find no mention there; and fifth and the major, which is the sharpest, difference is about the names of the post
Bhadrabāhu
1
Visakhācārya

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Jambū predecessors of Bhadrabāhu including his own preceptor's name in both sources. In the present state of our knowledge, it is difficult to explain this too obvious a difference, no question of reconciling the two lists52. One of them is inaccurate or both may be unaware of certain realities of the past.
Now, to some other facts/anecdotes recorded in Southern sources. The Aradhanā of Sivārya (c. early 6th cent, A.D.), a Yāpanīya work (or plausibly of its likely parent sect, the Botika-Ksapanaka of north India, founded by the schismic pontiff Arya Sivabhūti in the second century A.D.) only records a single fact : It states that Bhadrabāhu passed away by resorting to avamodarya, reduction in the quantity of the food intake. It does not, though, specify the place where he breathed his last. Nor does it note his predecessors,' or 'successors' names either. The Kathākośa of Harisena (A.D. 931), however, mentions that, after the prediction he made of the 12 years' draught in Ujjayanī, Bhadrabāhu passed away in Bhādrapadadeśa (unidentified, but may be contiguous to the Pāriyātra region adjacent to the Mālava country) by anaśana or rite of suspension of aliments. The earlier noted Kannada work, the Aradhana-tīkā, however, despite several legendary and imaginary elements appearing in its long-winding narration, does state that Bhadrabāhu passed away by avamodarya but that event occurred in Sravanabelgola. (The details and implications of these differing statements are reserved for discussion in Section VI.)
Works attributed to Bhadrabāhu
From at least the time of the opening verse of the Daśāśrutaskandhaniryukti and the Pancakalpa-niryukti (both c. A.D. 525) and, following it in time, of the Pañcakalpabhāsya of Sanghadāsa gani (c. A.D. 550) as well as the Daśāśrutaskandhacurņi (c. mid 7th cent. A.D.), the authorship of the three chedasūtras—the Daśāśtrutaskanda (also called the Acāradaśā), the Kalpa, and the Vyavahāra of the Northern or Ardhamăgadhī canon-is attributed to Arya Bhadrabāhus4 Bhadrabāhu, in the post-Gupta Svetāmbara (as well as the medieval and possibly pre-medieval Digambara) tradition, is believed to be the last patriarch to have possessed, as had been noticed in the foregoing pages, the complete knowledge of scriptural works (śrutakevali). Likewise, he is looked upon as the last to have possessed the knowledge of the 14 Purva-textsss; hence he also had been called

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the antima caturadaśa-pūrvadhara in the post-Gupta, pre-medieval, and medieval exegetical and the late biographical literature of the northern tradition. The current Svetāmbara Jaina tradition, and even the critical Western scholarship, hardly had doubted the pious assumption regarding Bhadrabāhu's authorship of the Kalpa and the Vyavahāra (along with the Daśāśruta)56, and hence no attempt was made to check the accuracy/ veracity of the belief and hence of the tradition by verifying the premises on which it may have been founded.
The Kalpa and the Vyavahāra are formularies embodying the monastic codes containing the basic rules of conduct, the first text enjoining what is admissible and what is not for the Nirgrantha mendicants and nuns; the second, in its primary intentions, lays down the rules of atonement embracing large areas of conduct as well as what must be done in cases of the transgression of the disciplinary rules, surprisingly with fair amount of detail for the age they were formulated, together with some other material. (As the matter stands, these two texts, along with the Daśāśrutaskanda, till now have not been subjected to detailed textual, linguistic, analytical, and stylistic study.)
The style and, no less the content, of the first two works under reference—both being in the sūtra or prose form--should be able to reveal whether the monastic situations/conditions envisaged therein can be consistent with, or can really go back to the times as ancient as those of Arya Bhadrabahu (c B.C. 325-297). And, predictably, the study of the terminology and expressions, language and phrase-structure together with the formal habits and cadence, can cast light on their true temporal status and sectarial affiliation. These factors can be considered here but only very briefly.
Terminology, Style, and Content
1) Unlike the most ancient among the extant agamas, namely the Acārānga (Book I, c. B.C. 450-300), and next the Sūtrakrtānga (Book I, earliest parts c. B.C. 300-100), and the Uttaradhyayana (early chapters c. 3rd cent. B.C. to 1st cent. B.C.-A.D.), and unlike also the early Pāli Buddhist worksS7, the term acela for the nude friar is almost completely absent in the Kalpa as well as in the Vyavahāra58. The two works, instead, inention the Jina-kalpa and the Sthavira-kalpa states (sthitis) for the Nirgrantha

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recluses59. (The Vyayahāra also mentions pāņipratigrahadhāri [bowl-less mendicants) and Pratigrahadhāri (in essence monks using a begging-bowl]). These terms, on the other hand and, significantly, are absent in theagamas of the pre-Christian Era. What is more, there is here noticeable a scholastic approach and classificatory tendencies about the kaipa-sthitis which do not seem compatible to, or correspond with the much simpler and straightforward (but very stern) ideals held, and the precise rules laid down for the acela or
e friars and, by contradistinction, for the sacela friars (in that early age having minimal allowable possession for them) in the undoubted oldest strata of the earlier agamas such as the Ācārānga Book I. Even the style and phraseology of these specific kalpa-sthiti passages in the Kalpa widely differ from those of the rest of the text. These passages apparently had been introduced at some point in time from somewhat later and different, yet relatively ancient, source. These formidable facts raise the first solid suspicion on the supposedly high antiquity of the Kalpa and the Vyavahāra and their authorship ascribed to Bhadrabāhu.
2) Both of these works reflect a highly developed state of organization of the Nirgrantha clergy, as also a well-established as well as much proliferated monastic church. On the testimony of the third phase of the Sthavirāvali (c. A. D.100) of the Paryusaņā-kalpa, the first ganas or organized bands of friars and mendicants (nigganthas, bhikkhus) and nuns (nigganthis, bhikkūnīs) progressively began to be instituted some 50 years or so posterior to Bhadrabāhu* and had diversified further, indeed considerably so into śākhās and kulas by, and even before, the first two centuries of the Christian Era. The ganas, in the next stage, also were further divided into sambhoga-groups. The Vyavahāra refers to this latter term which, however, nowhere appears in the earlier canonical literature including even the Ācārānga Book II (c. Ist cent. B.C.-A. D.): It does figure though in
*
Alate Sātavāhana inscription in one of the Junnar caves in Maharashtra refers to "Siddh-gane Aparājite." [Cf. S. Nagraju, Buddhist Architecture of Western India, (C. 250 B.C.-A.D. 300), Delhi 1981, “Appendix : List of Brahmi Inscriptions from the Rock-cut monuments of Western India," p. 331, Ins. no. 10.) If the Aparājita noted here is the grand preceptor of Bhadrabāhu, then the convention for the gana formation may have started a few decades earlier. The whole problem needs further investigation. (Thisgana has not been noticed even from an early literary source. It is noted late in the Southern work, the Śrutāvatāra (c. 10th cent.].)

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the Mathurā inscriptions; but the earliest of those which have this term are of the middle Kusāna period, generally datable to c. 3rd cent. A. D. or slightly earlier 61. And the terms ganāvacchedaka (administrator of the gana) and his female counterpart, the ganāvacchedikā (next to mother superior), figuring in the Vyavahāra-sutra, appear neither in the earlier canonical texts nor anywhere in the inscriptions. These monastic positions/titles had been instituted and apparently, therefore, the terms denoting them had been coined and had come into currency, arguably some centuries posterior to Bhadrabāhu's time62.
3) The Kalpa permits the friars to have cloth (vattha, vastra), also a piece of cloth for foot-cleaning (pādapuñchanaka), and a blanket (kambala), the possessions which enter somewhat later into (and even may have been interpolated into) the corpus of monastic rules embodied in the somewhat younger portions of the Ācāranga I, but are more regularly referred to thereafter. The Vyavahāra-sūtra, moreover, is much too lenient in allowing several objects as friar's possession : these include a leatherpiece, a leather-bag, a cloth-curtain, a stick, and even an umbrella53. A rule such as this could be an anathema to the followers of the doctrine of the total non-possession (or exceptionally and indeed exceedingly restricted possession) for recluses belonging to the Church of Arhat Vardhamāna, to which the patriarch Arya Bhadrabāhu traditionally had belonged. Here, in point of fact, is discerned a clear-cut introduction of the elements consistent more with the practices of the followers of the Church of Arhat Pārsva (and hence of the Pārśvāpatyas) rather than those of the Church of Arhat Vardhamāna64. Friars who kept such accessory objects (upakaranas) later will be classed as "Pāsatthâ” or wayward and degraded or, alternatively, perhaps more accurately, implied to be (or may be interpreted simply as) those who had not joined the reformed and sternly ascetical Church of Arhat Vardhamāna but had stayed within the more lenient Church of Arhat Pārsva (hence Pārsvastha). The position in the Vyavahāra, for such sections of the text, either indicates a period considerably later than that of Arya Bhadrabāhu or else, if it really is early, reflects a very different monastic ideology and practices. It unquestionably stands farther from the extremely austere and strict monasticism of Arhat Vardhamāna. Vyavahāra's moderate discipline comes closer to not only what is attributed to the Church of Arhat Pārsva but also, to a fair degree, to the Order of Buddha. In point of fact,

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in terms of the doctrinal principles and consequent monastic rules, such a situation was to manifest in the future times in western India, indeed some centuries posterior to even the period of Arya Raksita (c. 1st cent. A. D.) who had permitted only one additional pātra or bow165 beside the usual (single) begging bowl and who advocated and practised strict nudity, allowing no other possession including loin cloth (kati-bandhana, kari-pattaka, cola-pattaka) for a friar66, the kati-bandhana, interestingly, is noted in the Kalpa and in the relatively later portion of the Acāranga I. (If the Kalpa indeed was authored by Bhadrabāhu, then this point will have a bearing on Bhadrabāhu's doctrinal leanings and creedal connections.)
4) The Kalpa loudly talks about a "shelter-building” (uvassaya, upāśraya) which temporarily may be occupied by friars and nuns and also enters into considerable detail relating to its surroundings as well as its internal disposition 67. Places such as these as temporary resorts for recluses virtually is an impossible reality in the early phase of the Church of Vardhamana : because, the earlier āgamic injunction refers exclusively to cemetery (susana i.e. smaśāna), ruined and desolate dwelling-houses (sunnāgāra, śūnyāgāra), and tree-bases (rukhamūla, vškşamüla) as places appropriate for recluses to take shelter by or into68. The Kalpa, of course, is aware at least of vrksamüla and also adds there 'bamboo-clump base' which it permits to the nirgranthas but forbids to the nirgranthis, nuns69. However, the older spirit and the forms of very rigorous ascetic practices are somewhat wanting in this (as well as, even more so, in the Vyavahāra) text.
The Kalpa, though forbidding the nuns to stay at the travellers' lodge (ägamanagrha), permits the mendicants to do so70. The latter clause is again inconsistent with the most ancient friars' discipline if we take into account the earlier notions of the Nirgrantha monastic constraints as laid down in, or understandably followed within, the Church of Arhat Vardhamana. Indeed, this and several other such points encourage toward reassessing the nature of monastic discipline of Bhadrabāhu's time.
5) The style of the Kalpa, though sounding fairly ancient where the sutras generally begin as 'No kappati' (not permissible), or 'Kappati' (permissible), is seldom encountered in other disciplinary agamas like the Acāränga Book II, the Nīšitha, etc?l. It is, perhaps, likely that such a style of phrasing may have been peculiar more to the books of monastic codes,

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now lost?2, of the Church of Arhat Pārsva rather than of Arhat Vardhamāna and adopted for the composition of the Kalpa. Bhadrabāhu, it must be remebered, knew by heart the Pūrva texts of the Church of Arhat Pārsva as per the tradition.
Looking now at the mode of expression of the Vyavahāra, it is, in point of fact, and visibly, different from that of the Kalpa, although Bhadrabāhu is claimed to be the author of both the works. It also largely differs from the style of the agamas of the first three phases73. Moreover, the Vyavahāra, both in style and content, is heterogeneous in character, with chapters possibly of differing dates, details, and perceptions,
The text of the Kalpa as well as that of the Vyavahāra conceivably may have been modified at a few places and augmented or added to, or subtracted at some points of time in the past?5, a possibility which cannot be ruled out. Since both works also were included in the sacred treatizes of the Yāpaniya Sect, it may be concluded that they already were known and recognized as an authoritative part of the canon before the 2nd cent. A.D. in the Northern Nirgrantha Church?6. Supposing it can be established that the earliest portions of the two texts are indeed datable to the Maurya period, it would then raise some serious questions :1) Was Bhadrabāhu their author ? 2) If he were, did he lean toward the monastic discipline of the Church of Pārsva or, alternatively, did he sanction generous concessions for accommodating the mendicants and nuns of the Church of Parśva who, assumably, may have been progressively joining the Church of Arhat Vardhamana ? Since, as is believed in the tradion, he had mastered the 14 Purvas-arguably the āgamic books of the Pārsva's sect--there is a possibility that he was fully conversant with the Pārsvian monastic disciplinary code and, as a result, may have been influenced by it. If this surmise is accurate, it may, in turn, compel us to revise our views on Bhadrabāhu. The present discussion perhaps opens a door to what seemingly is an entirely unsuspected and uncharted area of investigation”. Of course, it will all depend on the definitive evidence, besides the presently known post-Gupta tradition, that the Kalpa and (the parts of) the Vyavahära were authored by Bhadrabahu.
The third work, namely the Daśāśrutaskandha olim Acāradaśā, both from the standpoint of style and content, is far more heterogeneous in composition and in content: and, for the style of a few of its chapters,

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it positively looks away from Bhadrabāhu's times. These chapters, in fact, are younger in age. It, therefore, raises even graver doubts about the veracity of its long believed attribution to Bhadrabähu. It likewise presents a somewhat more complex situation78, needing a separate investigation involving elaborate and an in-depth discussion.
Before closing this section, it may be noted that the Southern tradition does not attribute the composition of any work to Bhadrabāhu. It only believes that he was responsible for introducing and propagating the Nirgrantha religion in Southern India?' And later, in the eighth century, Padmanandi of the anvaya Kondakunda, known from the 13th or at most the 12th century as Kundakundācārya' in the Digambara sections in north India, is said to have regarded Bhadrabahu as his 'gamika-guru' or a teacher by virtue of his being, as he may have believed, in the Bhadrabāhu's sectarial traditions
VI
Śruta-Kevali Bhadrabāhu, Candragupta, Sravanabelgola, and Southern Jaina Traditions
Fairly considerable literature has grown in English and in German, not to say in Hindi and in Kannada which revolve around the Southern Nirgrantha traditions that associate Bhadrabāhu and Candragupta on one hand and on the other hand associate the two to the famous tirtha site of Sravanabelgola inside ancient Gangavādi, located in Southern Karnataka The trends of discussions and conclusions drawn therein reveal a picture in which some scholars agreeing, others rejecting, a few sitting on fence while some sensing not enough strength in available evidence yet willing to concede credibility to the tradition. When all is said and done, some among the noteworthy writings which dwell on this subject at some length, impress the reader as either one-sided since they refuse to use, even allude to, sources which go against their cherished intentions (or declare them as late although they are not), often indeed uncritical or insufficiently critical or wanting in an objective as well as common sense approach. Perhaps the only, rather very partial, exceptions are the much too succinct statements within the discussion by the editorial team of the Epigraphia Carnatica Volume II (Mysore 1973) and a brief observation by A. M. Ghatage®
The earliest, and indeed crucial, evidence in the Southern context is the Sravanabelgola Sanskrit inscription No.1 (c. 600 A. D.), which more or

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less had been the starting point of discussion in several serious writings. It refers to a prediction in Ujjayani by Bhadrabahu, an expert on the eightfold omenology (aṣṭanga-nimitta)-he is not called there either 'śrutakevali' or 'caturdaśa-pūrvadhara" of the visitation of a 12-year famine (dvādaśa samvatsara-kāla-vaiṣamya, implied to be in north India) whereupon the entire Nirgrantha community (samasta-samgha) from north India (Uttarapatha) migrated to south India (Dakṣināpatha). At some point, when this congregation (samgha) was passing through southwestern Karṇāta (the specific area later to be called Gangaväḍi), a pontiff by name Prabhācandra, sensing his end approaching, separated himself from the congregation and clambered the hill Katavapra (Cikkabetta or Candragiri Hill in Śravanabelgola) along with one disciple (name not specified) with the objective of passing away in peace (samadhi) by the rite of suspension of aliment unto death (sanyāsārādhitavan). And in course of time, some 700 other friars in succession followed (the same path, of dying by the rite of sallekhana), the inscription in question reports as its end note83.
The said inscription does not bring Bhadrabahu to this Hill; his rôle was confined to making the prophesy of the oncoming draught that was to last for 12 years. Indeed, the central focus of the inscription is "Prabhācandra," not Bhadrabahu. What is more, the inscription is silent on Candragupta, a significant omission. There is likewise not the slightest indication there to warrant equating Prabhācandra with Bhadrabahu and, the unnamed accompanying disciple, with Candragupta; nor, on the other hand, is there even the vaguest hint that would allow identitying Prabhäcandra with Candragupta. Indeed, no source clarifies that the Maurya emperor Candragupta, after his supposed ordination as a Nirgrantha friar, was rechristened Prabhācandra. Such an identification has been conjectured by some writers of our times, but without any clear or firm evidence to base upon. In any case, the inscription, like the Aradhanā of Sivärya, is silent on what happened to Bhadrabahu or where he proceeded after the prediction he is said to have made in Ujjayanī.
Now, to explain away the silences, an inference has been drawn from this inscription that two Bhadrabāhu-s (as stated here in annotation 82) are implied, the first one is he who figures in the pontifical sequence from Loharya downwards, that is the one who was the disciple of Govardhana and preceptor of Visakha as also the preceptor of Candragupta: It was he who,
the
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in the tradition, was the śrutakevali and the caturdaśa-pūrvadhara : the second Bhadrabāhu who, in due course flourished in that monastic tradition, was the astănga-naimitika (expert on eightfold omenology). It was he who predicted the visitation of the 12 years' famine in Ujjayani. But neither of the two Bhadrabāhu-s is, even implicitly, said there to have visited Sravanabelagola. It was Prabhācandra who passed away on the Katavapra Hill there according to that earliest inscription from Sravanabelagola.
The commemorative record under reference, moreover, is not contemporaneous with the passing away of Prabhācandra. It arguably was engraved centuries after the period of the supposed happening of the event which, implicitly though, is much later than c. B.C. 300 (Bhadrabāhu's time) and predictably even a few years after the second Bhadrabāhu conjectured, by some scholars, from the data contained in the inscription. And between the date of Prabhācandra's passing away and the date of this inscription of C. A.D. 600, significantly, no commemorative inscriptional record is found on this Hill even when it clearly refers to the passing away of some 700 other friars after Prabhācandra on this Hill84. The inscription seemingly records the essence of a "legend" or "belief," current in the late sixth century, of the death by self-mortification earlier on this Hill, of a pontiff named "Prabhācandra," a nomen which has no parallel in the period between the Mauryan and the very early centuries of the Ganga (or for that matter contemporaneous Kadamba) period in Karnāța, or for that matter in the inscriptional or literary records of the earlier periods—be they Nirgrantha, Buddhist, or Brahmanical--in north India. Typologically, the name does not accord with the fashions in vogue for personal appellations before the sixth, or at most the fifth century A.D85. Prabhācandra, doubtless, will be a very popular nomen for the monks in pre-medieval and, even more so, in the medieval Digambara Jaina Church. In literature, the earliest reference noticeable for this appellation is by Pujyapada Devanandi (activec. A.D. 635685) in his Jainendra-sabdaśāstra, referring as he does to a peculiar grammatical formation in Sanskrit by Prabhācandra86 and the next is in the encomium of the Jayadhavalā-tikā (began by Virasena, completed by his great disciple Jinasena (c. A.D. 837) in which Jinasena eulogizes the (poetic) qualities of the Candrodaya-kāvya of Prabhācandra87, the reference in the latter two cases might pertain to one and same poetPrabhảcandra—though not to the Candragiri-Prabhācandra who is purported

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to belong to earlier times88. After these two relatively early Prabhäcandrasone figuring in the 600 A.D. inscription, the other appearing in the two literary allusions, one being post-Gupta (early Calukya) and the other pre-medieval (early Rästrakūta)-several other Prabhācandras successively came in different ganas and gacchas till the late medieval times as inferred from the Digambara inscriptional and literary / hagiological and allied notices. This early ‘Prabhācandra' of Śravanbelgola, then, generates an enigma which will need future efforts and concrete, indeed more definitive, evidence to resolve it. One thing is certain. He cannot be connected either with Bhadrabāhu or with Candragupta.
Within 50 years of this earliest inscription on Candragiri mentioning Prabhācandra, scores of other inscriptions are encountered from whose report it is clear that the pontiffs and mendicants, monks and nuns, vied one another ritually to give up their life on this sanctified Hill. Could the legend of the first Prabhācandra—a figure unknown in the annals--passing away here have inspired this phenomenal (and from the standpoint of Jainism a sacred and elevating) activity of self-mortification on this Hill ? Arguably not. A more powerful stimulus was needed for this development. Plausibly, between c. A.D. 550-650, a new and a parallel legend was being worked out, at some Jaina centre in Karnataka, of Śrutakevali Bhadrabāhu and his supposed disciple, the Maurya emperor Candragupta, laying down their life by the sacred rite ofsallekhanä on this Hill. Some anecdotes or bits of partially valid historical facts must have existed for the formulation of such a legend.
The beginning of a part of this belief, somewhat vaguely though, may be sensed in a statement occurring in the Tiloyapannatti (Trilokaprajñpti, c. A.D. 550 with sizeable later additions) that, among the crowned kings, Candragupta was the last to be initiated to the Order89 : There is, though, no clarification in this notice whether the Maurya' Candragupta is implied and who his preceptor was. It is only the epigraphical records, in date posterior to the Tiloyapannati, to be noticed now, which implicitly or explicitly connect the two.
The most crucial on this issue is the Śravanabelogo! inscription 17-18 (32) in Kannada, dateable to c. mid seventh century. It states : "When the Faith that had much prospered in the time of the pair of the chief among the sages—Bhadrabāhu and Candragupta---who shed lustre on it, later grew dimmed, (then) the coral-lipped śāntisena, the chief among the ascetics,

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rejuvenated it: And on the hill at Velgola, having given up food etc., attained the (state of) cessation of birth (i.e. attained salvation) : "90
श्रीभद्रबाहु सचन्द्रगुप्तमुनीन्द्रयुग्मदिनोप्पेवल्। भद्रमागिद धर्ममन्दु वळ्लिक्केवन्दिनिसळकलो ॥ विद्रुमाधरशान्तिसेनमुनीशनामिएवेळगोळ।
अद्रिमेलशनादि विट्टपुनर्भवक्केरे आगि । This inscription for certain connects Bhadrabāhu with Candragupta, arguably as the teacher and the disciple, though it does not explicitly associate the two with Śravanabelago!a. However, the act of including this phrase in the draft of the inscription would be meaningless if the composer of the text had not intended to convey the connection of the two with this sacred Hill. From this standpoint, it may be regarded as the earliest pointer, even somewhat obliquely, toward that direction.
Next of note are some inscriptions, all of them of medieval period and not valuable as weighty evidence in the historical construct for times very ancient. An inscription of c. A. D. 1110 (71[166]) in the Bhadrabāhu cave, records that some Jinacandra bowed to the feet (carved imprints) of Bhadrabāhusvāmi : And, below the footprints carved on the summit of the Cikkabetta hill, is a 13th century record purporting to the effect that they are those of Bhadrabāhusvămī. What is more, in the two records from Srirangapattana taluk, of c. A. D. 900 (E.C. Vol. III, Sr. 147, 148], it is stated that Kalbappu (Katavapra or Cikkabetta Hill) is blessed with the (carved) imprints of the feet of Bhadrabāhu and Candragupta. Moreover, an inscription of A. D. 1163 (Nos.40 (54), new no. 71) refers to śrutakevali Bhadrabāhu and his disciple Candragupta. Likewise, a record of A. D. 1129 (Nos.5 (67), new no.77) refers to the celebrated pair. And on a pillar in the Siddharabasadi environs on the Doddabetta (Vindhyagiri, Sravanabelagola) are two late records, the first of A. D. 1398 (No.105, [254]) mentioning śrutakevali Bhadrabāhu and the second of A.D. 1432 which mentions śrutakevali Bhadrabāhu and his disciple Candragupta". It thus remains established that, at the dawn of the medieval period, the Bhadrabähu-Candragupta pair and their association with Sravanabelgola was a firmly established fact in the Digambara Jaina lore and later was persistently recalled as inferred from the above-cited inscriptions. And the footprints of Bhadrabāhu were carved on Cikkabuta or Candragiri before A. D. 900.

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Turning next to the Southern literary sources having a bearing on Bhadrabāhu, the earliest, as was pointed out, is the Ārädhanā of Śivärya (c. 6th cent.), a Yāpanīya (or Botika-Ksapanaka) and not Digambara work. it, however, refers to only a single point related to Bhadrabāhu, namely his death due to reduced food intake92 :
ओमोदरिए घोराए भद्दबाहू असंकिलिट्ठमदी। घोराए विगिच्छाए पडिवण्णो उत्तमं ठाणं ॥
-आराधना १५३९ The next source is the Ārādhanā-tīkā, also known as the Vadda-Aradhane (c. 9th or early 10th cent.), the commentary in Kannada by Bhrājisnuo, on the above-cited Sivārya's Ārādhanā. Unlike the inscriptions, it delineates Bhadrabāhu's life-sketch wherein a small part seems somewhat genuine, but the rest has a look and flavour of fiction as well as smell of fabrication and coloured by sectarian bias, the latter part omitted here in discussion since irrelevant in the present context.
'In the town of Kaundini within the Pundravardhana county,' says Bhräjişnu, *ruled a chief called Padmaratha with his consort Padmaśrī. To his high priest Somaśarmā and wife Somaśrī was born Bhadrabāhu.'
The names, except for Bhadrabāhu and the localities noted there, obviously are fictitious. The commentary next enters into a lengthy mythical account concerning caturdaśapūrvi Govardhana (ultimately the one who initiated Bhadrabāhu) and immediately next the one relating to Bhadrabāhu. This portion we may leave out for good. What is contextually significant is of course the notice that Bhadrabāhu not only learnt the Anga texts (the 11 Nirgrantha canonical works) but, significantly, also the Purva. texts from his preceptor Govardhana.
The Commentator then dwells not upon the Maurya emperor Candragupta but his grand son Aśoka reigning in Pätaliputra. Next he turns to another phase of the anecdote, the queen Candrananā, consort of Asoka's son Kunāla, the prince who was blinded by an official due to a wrong reading (tempered version?) of the emperor's communication. She gave birth to a son who was named Samprati-Candragupta by Aśoka. Following this account, starts a lengthy mythical narrative concerning the previous embodiment of that prince, which being totally useless as history, has to be ignored. The grown up Samprati-Candragupta is placed by the Commentator in

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Ujjeni (Ujjayani) which is next visited by Bhadrabāhu, alongwith a large group of friars. There he sojourned in some park. Interestingly, Bhadrabahu is qualified by the commentator as 'Caturdaśa-pūrvadhara' and not 'astānga-naimitika' in contrast to the Sravanabelagola inscription of c. A.D. 600. King Samprati-Candragupta visits Bhadrabāhu and embraces the vows of the (Nirgrantha) lay-follower. One day. Bhadrabāhu, during his almsbegging tour, entered a house where a child in a swing said: "Revered Sir, go away, go away!" He took these words as omenic of the onset of a draught: on asking for how many years, the child, by gesture, indicated the figure 12. Whereupon Bhadrabāhu assembled the disciples and announced the visitation soon of 12 years famine and proposed to migrate to South. The same night the King dreamt 16 strange and prognosticative dreams, their interpretation by Bhadrabāhu leading to the same conclusion, of the oncoming eventuality of the prolonged draught. (The lengthy narrative relating to this imaginary event is omitted here.) The King, now knowing about the impending calamity, joined the Order of the Mendicants. Bhadrabāhu next sent a message to the mendicants in Madhyadeśa to migrate to South. And he, with his new disciple Samprati-Candragupta and eight thousand friars moved toward the Southern country. On the way, when they reached Katavappu (Katavapra, Candragiri in Sravanabelgola), he sensed that his end is near. Whereupon he sent the sangha under the leadership of his other (arguably senior) disciple Viśākha to the Tamil country. He next clambered the hillock Katavapra with SampratiCandragupta, undertook the rite of avamodarya and sanyasta, eventually passed away and, was born as god in the Brahmakalpa heaven with the life span of ten sāgaropamas'. Samprati-Candragupra stayed on at Kațavapra, and, as for alms, he was eating what a sylvan deity of that area offered. After 12 years, when the news reached that the drought in Madhyadeśa had ended, Visakhācārya returned from south to Katavapra advised SampartiCandragupta not to accept food from a deity, and proceeded toward north. Samprati-Candragupta who, staying as he did for all those years close to the (commemorative) shrine of Bhadrabāhu on the hillock, eventually passed away and (he, too,) was born in the Brahmakalpa with the life span of ten sägaropamas.
Forgetting the imaginary elements which are innate to the Indian narrative class of writings in ancient and medieval India Jaina being

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famous for its super-inflated megalomania and super-astronomical pampalomania—the problems that this kathā generates are, even at the first look, these :
1) In the established history of India, Samprati was junior to Bhadrabāhu by four generations, he being the great grandson of emperor Candragupta's son Bindusāra. Moreover, he never was known as Candragupta. So, this notice in the commentary is very visibly anachronistic besides betraying gross historical confusiono. (Samprati, of course, had ruled from Ujjayanī, but his preceptor was Arya Suhasti who in turn was Arya Sthūlabhadra's disciple, as gleaned from the post-Gupta Svetāmbara sources. And that hagiographical notice perfectly synchronizes with the known dates of the Maurya imperial chronology.
2) It is clear that, the legend of Prabhācandra and his unnamed disciple as noted in the Sravanabelagola inscription of c. A.D. 600, is transferred here to, or superimposed on Bhadrabāhu and Candragupta duo. This new legend of the association of those two celebrities with Sravanabelagola apparently had come into currency in Karnataka by, or before, circa the mid seventh century and Bhräjisnu used it to fit it in his narrative context. The two inscriptions from Seringapattam taluq which are more or less contemporaneous with Bhrājişnu's commentary, likewise cannot be reckoned as good evidence for Bhadrabăhu-Candragupta connections with Sravanabelagola. The whole episode smells of improbability and hangs on a slender thread of an untenable notice. A solid and an unambiguous as well as fairly early evidence of Bhadrabāhu's migration with Candragupta to Śravanabelgola is wanting. No reliance can be placed on later writings which come in conflict with what is said and implied in the relatively earlier sources. The earliest inscription referring to Bhadrabāhu does talk about migration to South, but in that event neither Bhadrabāhu, nor Candragupta, or both were involved; and the earliest available literary source---Bhrājisnu's Kannada commentary (c. 9th - 10th cent.), too, does not illuminate the history because of the confusions it creates.
3) The commentator had given no thought on the logistics of as many as eight thousand friars travelling together, the problems about feeding them under the strict Nirgranthist rules of bhiksā, besides providing them camping facilities, which virtually would be unmanageable in those times. In the pre-Mauryan and Mauryan periods, megalithic culture had prevailed

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in Karnataka. But the nearest megalithic habitations were some miles away from Sravanabelagola. There is, indeed, no evidence that Sravanabelagola, with its starkly stony terrain, was inhabited even long centuries after the Maurya times.
There are conflicting notices as to the region where the famine was to visit as per the prediction; was it just Madhyadeśa (central and eastern Uttar Pradesh) or was it the entire northern India. In the former case, there was no need to migrate to Southern India. Also, a continuous draught lasting for as many as 12 years would create a havoc in the ecology of the concerned territories. Most rivers progressively would have dried up. The Jaina writers (of both sects) gave no thought on what, under such circumstances, would have happened to the Brahmanists, the Buddhists, the Ājivakas and other people who all together must have constituted the far larger part of population than the Nirgranthas in north India. Such an eventuality also would have destroyed the larger part of flora and fauna, besides human population of north India. And the Buddhist annals surely would have taken note of it.
The South-oriented source, next in time, seemingly is the “Bhadrabāhu-kathānaka" inside the Brhat-kathākośa of Harisena (A.D. 931)%. It largely agrees with the Vadda-ārādane in several details. It mentions the capital town Koțipura (in Bengal, which, as the author reports, was called in his times Davakotta), the names given of the ruling king and his consort and those of Bhadrābāhu's parents there are the same as mentioned in the Arādhanā-tikā. When Bhadrabahu was young, the caturadaśapūrvi Govardhana muni, who was on his way to Ujjayantagiri* for paying obeisance to Jina Nemi, visited Kotinagara (=Kotipura). Bhadrabāhu apparently was initiated on that occasion by Govardhana muni who imparted the knowledge of the scripture (śruta) to him. After some years, Bhadrabahu, alongwith the caturvidha-samgha, visited Ujjayani-puri (Ujjain), located on the river Kșiprā, in Avanti-visaya. There ruled king Candragupta with his consort Suprabhā. He was already) a (Nirgrantha) śrāvaka possessing true faith (samyag-darśana). While sojourning in Ujjayans, once on his begging tour, in one mansion, Bharabāhu saw a child
*
This Tirtha, however, was not founded till we come to the initial centuries of the Common Era.

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resting in a swing. The child made him a gesture to leave, which he took as an omenic sign and predicted the onset soon of a 12 years' famine, whereupon the Sangha proceeded to Dakṣiṇāpatha while he himself retired to (some unspecified place within the Bhadrapradadeśa where he passed away in peace. Before that, Candragupta joined the Order of Mendicants and was called 'Candragupti muni'. The narrative's details up to the prediction part essentially are the same as in the Arādhana-tīkā; but Harisena does not send Bhadrābahu to Sravanabelagola, a point on which he, in fact, sharply differs from, or rather contradicts, Bhrājisnu. Also, the king's name he specifies is just 'Candragupta,' not 'SampratiCandragupta;' what is more, the Maurya emperor Candragupta had ruled from Pātaliputra, not from Ujjayanī, though that visaya apparently was included in his empire (and a century or so afterwards, his fifth descendant Samprati will govern it). And Harisena does not mention the 16 dreams dreamt by Candragupta that confirmed the visitation of 12 years' famine and, further more, the other undesirable consequences that will follow therefrom. Lastly, he does not state what happened to Candragupti muni, whether he accompanied Bhadrabāhu, or remained in Ujjayani, or went along with the Congregation to the Southern country.
Among the Northern narrative sources on Bhadrabāhu, usually, why totally neglected by the scholars using Southern sources, four happen to be more important. The earliest is the Tirthāvakālika prakırnaka (c. A.D. 550). Its author first lays down the details of Bhadrabāhu's hagiology, which, of course, follows that of the Paryusanākalpa-Sthavirāvalī as well as of the Nandisutra. Next, in its exposition, it brings in Bhadrabāhu in connection with a single, and an important, episode described through 63 verses in Prakrit. As the work goes on to say, after the end of the prolonged drought (its duration unspecified) in Madhyadeśa (eastern U.P.), the (Bhiksu-) sangha assembled in Pātaliputra (in Magadha) to reconstitute the agamas since many learned pontiffs had lost the memory of several texts due to their abandoning regular recitational practice-some knowledgeable friars even may have passed away-during those trying years. The munis, who participated in the proceedings of the Synod, are reported to have reconstituted the 11 anga-texts but, as the work reports, none of them remembered the 12th one, the Destivāda, in which were included the Purvatexts—in all probability the works of the Church of Arhat Pārsva-which

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arguably contained Pārsva's pravacana or teachings. The only pontiff who is said to have possessed the knowledge of the Purva-texts was Bhadrabăhu who was not present at the Synod. (It is not clarified where he then was and why was he not present despite his eminence.) A messenger from the Council was sent to him, respectfully addressing him as the 'Jina of their times' and requesting him to pass the knowledge of those texts to the Council, to which he declined, expressing as he did disconcern and detachment. That angered the (leaders of the) Sangha who next sent a categorical/unequivocal notice warning him that he, as he himself is aware of the rule, in that event, will be excommunicated. Thereupon Bhadrabahu yielded, agreeing to impart instruction to some bright young mendicants. Whereupon Sthūlabhadra', alongwith 500 friars--the figure of course is very highly inflated, a characteristic tendency noticeable in Jaina writings of this class—was sent. While other mendicants eventually deserted since the tempo of teaching was very slow, Sthūlabhadra alone persisted : and he persevered in learning from Bhadrabāhu. He progressively learnt the ten Purva-texts. In the meantime his seven sisters (who had embraced the Order of the Nuns) came to visit him”. Bhadrabāhu informed them that Sthūlabhadra then was meditating behind the Siva temple. In order to impress them with the supernatural powers he had acquired, Sthūlabhadra assumed the form of a lion which frightened the nuns who ran back to Bhadrabāhu telling him that the lion seems to have devoured Sthūlabhadra. Bhadrabāhu assured them that the lion is Sthūlabhadra himself. This incident of misuse, by Sthūlabhadra, of the extraordinary powers made Bhadrabāhu unhappy. He, consequently, refused to impart further instruction to Sthūlabhadra whose repentance-full appealings softened him and he passed the texts of the remaining four Purvas but withheld the exposition of their meaning. Ignoring the miraculous element which predictably emanated from the belief that the Purvas included a text that embodied the secrets of magical powers (Vijjāpāhuda/ Vidyāprābhrta ?)—the belief reflecting profound reverence of later ages toward the assumed mystical character of, and awe in which the long lost Purva-texts were held by, the later writers--the central fact remains that Sthūlabhadra had been deputed to Bhadrabāhu by the Pātaliputra Synod to learn the Destivāda that included the Pūrva texts. The BhadrabāhuSthūlabhadra connection may be inferred through an earlier reference,

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in Umāsvāti's Praśamarati-prakarana (c. A.D. 350), which tacitly hints to the myth of Sthūlabhadra's vanity due to his acquiring magical powers through the sacred literature and, as its consequence, he generated in his psyche (a sub-variety of) kasāya-passion called śruta-mada/vanity due to possessing (the rare) knowledge of the canon, the knowledge which otherwise was meant for eliminating vanity of all kinds99 :
माषतुषोपाख्यानं श्रुतपर्यायप्ररूपणां चैव । श्रुत्वाऽति विस्मयकरं विकरणं स्थूलभद्रमुनेः ।। सम्पकोद्यमसुलभं चरणकरसाधकं श्रुतज्ञानम् । लब्ध्वा सर्वमदहरं तेनैव मदः कथं कार्यः ।।
-rauchtut 84-8€ The medieval commentator of the Praśamarati-prakarana, namely Haribhadra sūri (A.D. 1129)100, thus explains the content of those verses relating to Sthūlabhadra and tacitly hints to the episode due to which (the quantitative) degradation/disappearance of the scripture or canon (śruta-viccheda) began:
'अतिविस्मयकरश्च विकरणं' वैकियसिंहरूपनिर्माणंस्थूलभद्रमहर्षेर्जामिआर्यिकाणां दर्शनाय, आगमाभियोगनितं लब्धिविकरणं श्रुतसम्प्रदायविच्छेदं....101
The next source, the Āvasyaka-cürni (c. A.D. 600-650), follows the Tirthāvakālika in time as well as in content, but specifies two additional details (not noted in the Tirthāvakālika), the first being that the drought had lasted for 12 years (as is also stated in the Southern sources) and, second, Bhadrabāhu had moved to Nepāla during that distressful period 102.
The third source, the Kathāvali of Bhadreśvara süri (c. late 10th cent.), repeats what the Tirthāvakälika as well as the Avaśyaka-cūrni record, differing only on a few minor details, or adding small particulars not mentioned by the former two sources. Like the cūrni, it states that Bhadrabāhu with Sthūlabhadra eventually had moved to Pātaliputra 103, apparently after the major part of instruction to Sthūlabhadra on the Purvatexts was over while in Nepāla.
The fourth source in sequence is the Parisista-parva of Hemacandra14 It clarifies a couple of points left partially unilluminated by the former three works. Plausibly, on the basis of what is noted in the Avasyaka-cūrni, it records that, at the time of the Pătaliputra Synod for the redaction of

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the canon, Bhadrabähu was in Nepāla where, as stated also in the cūrni, Hemacandra adds, he had undertaken the yogic maháprana-sadhanā. As its prelude, Hemacandra also talks about the 12 years' drought whereupon the pontiff Suschita dispersed the Samgha to different congenial locales and, at that time, emperor Candragupta attained Samadhimarana, peaceful end/death by ritually undergoing starvation. The work earlier talks at great length about Cānākya and how he helped Candragupta in vanquishing Nanda and in seizing his empire. Then there is a brief report on Candragupta's son and successor Bindusāra, followed by that on Asoka, his son Kunāla, and the circumstances under which Kunāla was blinded; also, he mentions Kunāla's consort (by name Saraccari) and their begetting the son Samprati who eventually was given a share in Aśoka's empire. (He very plausibly ruled from Ujjayani as his capital.) The account thus far and in part is endorsed by the earlier sources except that (Arya) Susthita, in point of fact, was to appear on the historical scene a couple of centuries lateri's. But more serious confusion appears when Hemacandra starts talking about a "second 12 years drought” and Bhadrabāhu next meeting Samprati, an impossible reality, unless he is some other Bhadrabāhu, about whom nothing is known from any other source. It was Arya Suhasti, disciple of Śthūlabhadra, who was contemporary as also the preceptor of Samprati. And this latter notice seems plausible since it synchronizers with the historical chronology of the Mauryan dynasts.
VII
Conclusions After assessing the total evidence from the available earlier writings and related pre-medieval and medieval epigraphs from Karnataka on Arya Bhadrabāhu, the following facts, by way of recapitulation, together with a few additional, brief, clarificatory, and further elucidatory observations now may be put forward. Alongwith it a few speculative thoughts also will be included. The picture delineated even by the collective information from all of the presently available sources, however, is far from complete. There are several gaps, lingering doubts, unresolved enigmas and obvious improbabilities ranged against the apparent plausibilities. The conflicting positions are present at several crucial points, paths, and turnings. As a result, the determinations in all such cases, wherever made, or plausibilities in happenings, wherever suggested, are at best tentative.

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1) Arya Bhadrabāhu doubtless had flourished during the régime of the first Maurya monarch Candragupta who had vanquished the Nanda and inherited his empire early in the last quarter of B.C. the fourth century, the general consensus for the absolute date of that event veers around B.C. 322106
2) Bhadrabāhu belonged to Prācīna-gotra and thus to Bengal as earlier perceived by U.P. Shah; and, R.C. Majumdar (who otherwise had not seen the Southern and South affiliated literary sources) likewise had arrived at the same conclusion-on the basis of the appellations of the sākhās or monastic branches emanated from his senior disciple Godāsa-that Bhadrabāhu was a native of Bengal. The Southern literary sources unequivocally endorse that inference, adding that he was born and (in his earlier years) had lived in a town within Bengal—be it Kaundini or Kotipura-and was initiated in Pundravardhana.
3) According to the second as also the third phase growth of the Sthavirāvali of the Paryusana-kalpa (c. A.D. 100), Bhadrabāhu was the disciple of Arya Yaśobhadra, the fifth pontiff in the hagiological descent from Arhat Vardhamāna. According to the Southern and South-affiliated Jaina literary sources (earliest of which dates from circa the mid 6th century onwards) as well as the Sravanbelagola inscription of c. A.D. 600, however, his preceptor's name was Govardhana who, too, might have been a Bengālī. As an after thought, a reconciliation between these two totally divergent notices, the Southern being four to five centuries younger in date than the Northern, may be suggested by assuming that Govardhana may have been the vidyāguru—not the diksaguru—who probably had taught the 14 Pūrva-texts to Bhadrabāhu. And the Southern sources, for that matter, in the hagiological sequence, connect Bhadrabāhu with Govardhana.
4) Bhadrabāhu, according to the earlier noted Sthavirāvali, had four disciples, namely Godāsa, Agnidatta, Yajñadatta, and Somadatta. They all, as their appelations unambiguously suggest, were brahmins. The Uttaradhyayana-niryukti reports the death of four disciples of Bhadrabāhu (who earlier were initiated in Rājagrha), on Vaibhāragiri near Rājagrha due to śīta parīşaha, suffering by severe chill. In the gloss given by the Uttaradhyana-cūrni, regarding the death of the four disciples in question, they are said to have died at different locales within Rājagrha's environs, of

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course due to the same cause, though it likewise does not identify them. This statement, as regards the four disciples of Bhadrabahu who died by suffering from intense cold, is broadly confirmed by a notice in the Prakīrnaka class of ägamic work, the Maranasamadhi, a pre-medieval compilatory work, which absorbed the versified content of eight earlier texts, largely of pre-Gupta (Mitra-Saka-Kusāna) date, within it. Now, the curni calls these latter four disciples as of vanika or mercantile community. Clearly, then, these four unnamed disciples were different from the former four named and, as their names suggest, of brahmin extraction.
5) Bhadrabāhu's senior disciple Godāsa as well as the latter's disciples, too, must have hailed from Bengal, as indicated by the appellations of the sākhās or branches of mendicants that afterwards had emanated from them, namely the Tāmraliptikā, the Kotivarsīyā, the Paundravardhanikā, and the Däsikharvatiká. Of these, at least the first three definitely were named after the then existing ancient towns in Bengal.
6) The authorship of the three āgama-category of works, namely the Daśāśrutaskandha, the Kalpa, the Vyavahära, as also of the Niryuktis traditionally is attributed to Bhadrabāhu in the Svetāmbara sect. Of these, the first three texts, afterwards classified under the Chedasútra category that dwells on the rules for ācāra or monastic discipline, the Kalpa alone and, plausibly, for its larger part (which seems ancient and largely uniform in style), may have been his work. The Niryuktis seemingly are as late as early sixth century A.D., of course partly based on older material. (The Logassasutta induded within the Avasyaka compendium is a hymn to the 24 Jinas and ascribed to Bhadrabāhu by Śīlācārya in his Ācārānga-vrtti [latter half of the 9th cent. A.D.). However, as I elsewhere have suggested, it could have been the inaugural hymn of the Prathamānuyoga of Ārya śyāma 1 (c. 1st cent. B.C -A.D.), which was the earliest work to notice the 24 tīrthankaras, giving as it also did their biographical (in most cases of course overtly fictitious) sketches.) The Svetāmbaras also attribute the famous magical and very popular hymn, the Uvasaggahara-thotta (Upasargahara-stotra), composed in the Mahārāstrī Prākṣta, to Bhadrabāhu. (In the Digambara sect, it is believed to be a composition by Mānatungācārya, c. fate 6th-early 7th A.D., an equally erroneous and hence untenable ascription) That work, as is obvious by its language, style, content, and spirit seems a composition by

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some medieval Svetämbara abbatial (caityavāsi) monk practicing sorcery and plausibly belonged to the late ninth or early tenth century A.D. as the of the hymn suggest.
7) It is likely that the emperor Candragupta, in the last year of his regnal period, may have been admitted by Bhadrabāhu to the Order of Mendicants. The combined information obtained from the Tiloyapannati (c. mid 6th cent.) and several inscriptions from Sravanabelagola dating from circa the mid seventh century onwards, provide such an indication. The 12th century Svetāmbara writer Hemacandra, on the basis of some source before him, records that Candragupta attained Samadhimarana 07, death by the rite of suspension of aliment which, too, would hint towards a possibility that he had embraced Nirgranthism. There is thus some degree of probability on this score even when the concerned sources are not sufficiently ancient. Some hazy but a genuine memory of the past event seems to have been preserved in that tradition 108. Bhadrabāhu doubtless was contemporary of Candragupta but not of Samprati who, in point of fact, was the son of Candragupta's great grand son Kunāla*. Both Bhrājisnu, the author of the Karnata-tīkā on the Arādhana and Hemacandra, the author of the Parisistaparva, are confused on this point. Samprati's association with Vijayanī as his capital (by virtue of his becoming the ruler of the westem half of Asoka's empire) does seem a historical reality or at least a plausibility.
8) As for Bhadrabāhu's visit to Śravanabelagola alongwith his mendicant disciple Candragupta and the passing away of both of them there, it is not so recorded in the earliest inscription from Sravanabelgola (c. A.D. 600). The inscription does mention Bhadrabāhu in connection with the prediction he made in Ujjayani of the 12 years' drought, but does not mention Bhadrabāhu and Candragupta or bring them to Śravanabelagola, although this eventuality of historic importance and of considerable significance could hardly have been missed by the author of the draft of the inscription. Instead, it mentions Prabhācandra to have died there 109 And no direct or indirect allusion to the effect of Bhadrabāhu's and Candragupta's association with Sravanabelagola is available in Northern Indian Jaina sources. Somewhere in Karnataka, this belief was taking shape apparently in the late sixth century and was firmly established by mid seventh
* The dynastic order is Candragupta, Bindusára, Asoka, Kunāla, and Samprati.

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century as earlier had been suggested here on the basis of an inscription, on the holy hill Katavapra, concerning Säntisena, of c. mid seventh century. Bhräjisnu, in the Arādhanā-tīkā (c. late 9th or early 10th Cent.), positively associates Bhadrabāhu and Candragupta with the Sravanabelgola hill. On this point, Harisena's Brhadkathākośa (A.D. 931) comes in conflict with the Bhrājisnu's tīkā. For it reports that Bhadrabāhu, after the prediction he made, retired from Ujjain to (some site in) Bhādrapradadeśa where he died by resorting to avamodarya or progressively decreased intake of food, the latter fact, without mentioning the locale sinvolved, was noted earlier and originally in Sivārya's Ārādhanā (c. early 6th cent). The Brhadkathākośa throws no light on Bhadrabāhu's disciple Candragupta as to what he did and where he was after he embraced the Order. Bhrājisnu, however, avers that he was with Bhadrabāhu when the latter passed away in Śravanabelagola by anaśana rite : and the sage Candragupta, who stayed over there, died sometime after the 12 years' draught. The Northern sources say nothing on how and where Bhadrabāhu died.
9) The most intriguing point is the presence of Bhadrabāhu simultaneously at two places and, on the opposite score, also in two times as deduced from two completely contradictory reports :(1) during and after the draught, he was in Nepāla; and (2) just before the onset of draught, he was in Sravanabelgola and his passing away there very soon after ! The Northern records, available from c. mnid sixth century onwards are unanimous that, when the Pātaliputra Synod was convoked after the draught for the redaction of the agamas in c. B.C. 300 (or a few years before that date), Bhadrabāhu was in Nepāla and Sthūlabhadra-disciple of Bhadrabāhu's confrère Arya Sambhūta (and son of Sakatāra, minister of Nanda)—was sent by the Paraliputra Council to Bhadrabāhu for learning the 14 Pūrva-texts from him. The Southern literary sources, all of which are late, on the other hand, claim that Bhadrabāhu was in Ujjayani, had predicted the onset of 12 years draught, and either before or just at the beginning of the 12 years famine, proceeded either to Bhadrapadadeśa where he passed away by reduction in food-intake, or to Sravanabelgola where he went along with his royal disciple Candragupta, passed away by anaśana rite, and had sent the Sangha with his disciple Viśākhācārya to Southern India (Tamilnadu). The Southern sources, moreover, show no knowledge about the Pätaliputra Synod which assembled after the long draught and that

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Bhadrabahu was still alive and then was in Nepāla11. It is difficult to reconcile the two totally differing and absolutely conflicting notices, their content standing poles apart. If these two represent not only very different traditions but also may refer to two separate Bhadrabāhu-s, which, somewhat remotely, may be a plausibility, then the first Bhadrabahu belonged to the Mauryan period and the second was of a later date who may have migrated to Śravanabelgola. However, the concerned biographical anecdotes of the two Bhadrabahu-s (if the second really existed) were confounded in the past and the today's messy confusion arises therefrom111. It generates a formidable conundrum which, in the present state of evidence cannot be resolved.
10) The complete absence in north India of inscriptions mentioning the ganas and the śākhās that had originated from Bhadrabahu's lineage is a pointer to the fact that Bhadrabahu's disciples and hagiological descendents were not in north India (Bengal and perhaps Orissa to be precise) and, by implication/deduction, had migrated to the Southern territories and settled there. Some, plausibly during the years of the draught, had gone as far as Simhala-dvipa, while several apparently had settled in the Pandyan country in lowermost Tamilnadu where the earliest grotto inscriptions (c. B.C. 2nd1st cent A.D.) indicating the passing away, apparently of the Nirgrantha recluses-assumably by the rite of sallekhana-have been inferred112.
11) Bhadrabahu of the Mauryan period, even if he really may have gone to Śravanabelgola, he may have done so a few years subsequent to the Pataliputra Synod and after Sthulabhadra's learning the Purva texts from him. There is no reason to brush aside the Northern sources on the point of Bhadrabāhu-Sthūlabhadra association. That particular tradition is, as recorded in the Northern literarily notices, positively anterior by about three centuries to the mid-seventh century Southern epigraphical reference that at best is suggestive only obliquely of the Bhadrabāhu-Candragupta connection with Śravanabelagola, while another epigraphical source at the same site, which is half a century anterior to the former, explicitly refers to Prabhäcandra and his (unnamed) disciple and not at all to Bhadrabāhu and Candragupta: but the earliest literary source, the commentary of Bhrājisņu (c. 9th-10th cent.) talks about Bhadrabahu and SampratiCandragupta (the ruler of Ujjayani) visiting Śravanabelagola and not the Maurya emperor Candragupta (who ruled from Pataliputra), who was

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Samprati's great grand-father's father. (Bhrājisnu doubtless is confused on this point.)
12) A question, indeed of sterling importance, also arises why Bhadrabāhu, despite his eminence and seneority, was not present at the Pataliputra Synod. It seems that, today's Bengal-Bihar divide seemingly had existed even in early Mauryan times. Bhadrabāhu apparently was alienated, the preponderance (and consequent predominance) of the mendicants from Magadha and from other territories, some of which now forming the State of Uttar Pradesh, at the Pātaliputra Synod and contrariwise, not according due importance to the Bengālī Bhadrabāhu, perhaps not even inviting him for the Redaction Conference, may have hurt him and consequently he may have remained aloof by staying in Nepāla and thereby completely ignoring the Synod 113. (The 'diktat' or command of the Synod to pass, what then had become very rare, the knowledge of the Pūrva texts, may have served to sprinkle salt on the wound.) That the tempo of teaching was very slow, proves that Bhadrabāhu was an unwilling horse and only reluctantly had imparted the instruction to Sthūlabhadra.
And the legendary anecdote of Sthūlabhadra's vanity bordering on deliquency was created, plausibly in pre-Gupta times or earlier (since the legend already was known to Umāsvāti) to cover up the fact that Bhadrabahu had withheld the last four Pūrva texts while the teaching had entered into the final phase. And there is no clarity on the point whether the Pataliputra Council had continued their sessions indefinitely and had waited till the return of Sthulabhadra. The medieval sources briefly note that both Bhadrabāhu and Sthūlabhadra had reached Pataliputra after the major part of teaching was over.
13) Since Bhadrabāhu either had not visited Karnataka at all, or, if he did, he may have stayed at Śravenabelag!a for a very brief period before he passed away : How, in that event, indeed in that extremely short period and under the avamodarya (oranasana) vow as he is said to be, did he propagate the Nirgrantha religion in Southern India is a moot point. The more likelihood is that it was his hagiological descendents as well as some other contemporaneous Nirgrantha mendicants, who had migrated during the drought period to Tamilnadu and settled there, possibly were

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responsible for the propagation of Nirgrantha-darśana in South, particularly and at first in the Tamil country and some time after in Andhradeśa 114 There may have been more than one group of mendicants that migrated from the northern (essentially eastern) to southern India'is, indeed progressively so in different ancient centuries.
Bhrājisnu, as well as Harisena, talk about the events in north India during the famine as well as what happened after Viśākhäcärya returned to north India in post-famine time. They are, of course, not only poorly informed but are overtly sectarian and the South affiliated sources posterior to these two earliest ones only repeat what the above-noted two authors said and the further additions of details they made only betray their very strong sectarian bias with increased hate and venom. (I intend to deal with that part of the storey, of what happened during the draught years and in post-Bhadrabāhu times in north India, as perceived by medieval and postmedieval Digambara writers, in a future paper.) In Karnataka, the Nirgranthas eventually may have moved from western Andhradeśa as well as from north western Tamilnadu and settled there only in the late third and early fourth century of the Common Era as indicated by the earliest charters from the lower Gangavāời and the Kadamba country that predate the known Śravanabelgoļa inscriptions116. The principalities of the Gangas and the Kadambas by then already had been founded. No earlier Jaina vestiges including epigraphs, or literary notices either, between c. B.C. 300 and A.D. 300 so far are known from Karnataka*
*
There, of course, are reported a few grotto inscriptions of c. the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. mentioning the death (by sallekhanā rites) of the (Nirgrantha) mendicants in lower southern Gangavādi.

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Annotations : 1. The 14 Pürva texts were believed to be the older and fundamental agamas. To
all seeming, they were of the sect of Arhat Pārśva and some of them plausibly had covered the early phase of Nirgrantha scholasticism. These texts' cosmography and probably much of the basic Nirgrantha doctrines (including the theory of eight karmas) and the dogmatics, besides disciplinary rules and allied matters, predictably had permeated through-of course by then in a developed formin some of the available earlier agamas, particularly their later chapters, and the younger ägamas, of the saka and Kuşāna periods, as well as the agamic works, all of the Northern tradition of Arhat Vardhamăna's Church. To a fair degree, this applies also to the much younger surrogate canon of the Southern tradition. As for the Niryuktis, these largely are composed in the Mahārāstrī Prakrit, are cast in the Aryā meter, and adopt the niksepa method of examination in determining the word's meaning intended in the given context. The German Jainologists ascribe these to c. 80 A, D. Muni Punyavijaya, however, regarded them still younger in date, composed as they must have been soon after the Valabhī Synod II (A. D. 503/516), and hence this date could be circa A. D. 525. Afterwards, however, he changed his view and ascribed them to the early centuries of the Common Era. However, i seem to think that his earlier determination is valid. The Mahārāstri Prakrit does not appear even in the Sātavāhana inscriptions before c. 200 A. D. and the first available work in Mahārāstri, the Tarangavaikaha of Padalipta sūri I also dates around A. D. 200
225. The Niryuktis do contain some older, but largely relatively later material. 2. Literarily omniscient by virtue of the complete knowledge of the sacred scripture.' 3. Since the Yāpaniya sect (mainly located in Karanataka) recognized the āgamas
including the 'Kalpa (Brhad-Kalpasūtra)' and the Vyavahāra,' both of which the Svetambara sect attributes to Bhadrabāhu, it is likely that, that sect, too, attributed these to Bhadrabāhu. (This, of course, is my feeling. There is, at the moment, no direct evidence to that effect.) These two different dates are given in some manuscripts of the Paryusanākalpa at the end of the "Jinacaritra” (which is the second of the three sections of che Paryusaņā-kalpa,) In some, the date given is V.N. 980; in a few others, according to another tradition, V.N.993. The first date apparently originates as per the Mathura Synod's tradition; the other plausibly was due to the Valabhi Synod I tradition as earlier was suggested and, as I recall, by Muni Kalyānavijaya in one of his works. (It was, perhaps, his Viranirvana Samvat aur Jaina

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Kālagananā, Hindi. At the moment it is not handy.) For the date of the nirvana of Jina Mahāvīra, I have followed Jacobi's determination, namely B.C. 477. According to the tradition recorded in Dharmasāgara's autocommentary on his Pattāvali (late 16th-early 17th cent.), the Paryusanā-kalpa was first recited in the assembly of Dhruvasena (I) of the Maitraka dynasty at Anandapura (Vadanagar) in north Gujarat. Hence Jacobi's determination appears valid; for the Maitraka prince named Dhruvasena (1) did flourish in early sixth century A.D. Seemingly, Dharmasāgara had before him some old traditional record. For no one before him mentions the name of this king, which was known only through the copper plate charters of the Maitraka donor rulers that were discovered,
deciphered, and studied in the last century. 5. These dates are suggested here on the basis of a reasonable guess, based on computa
tions and synchronisms, the details regarding which I shall not dwell upon here. For these are being discussed in a separate paper, "The Paryusana-kalpa sthavi
rāvalī—eka Adhyayana" (Gujarātī), still incomplete, to be published in future. 6. Arya Phalguinitra apparently was contemporary of Ārya Raksita, the latter pontiff
reported in later literature as the one who classified the śruta/canon into four anuyoga-categories, namely the Dharmakathānuyoga, the Caranakaranānuyoga, the Ganitānuyoga, and the Dravyānuyoga. Since the term anuyoga is synonymous also with vācanā or redaction, a hitherto unreported synod may be suspected in this notice. It may also be added that the available agamas are not categorically arranged into fouranuyogas or classes stipulated in the above-noted later tradition. Hence, the term anuyoga, in the above-noted context, may be understood more accurately as vacană rather than categories of canonical literature. Phaigumitra, for certain, figures in the main line of succession and Rakṣita, who otherwise may have played a key rôle at the Synod, apparently had belonged to a collateral branch (avántara sākha): Hence the name of Arya Raksita (who otherwise was of considerable eminence) does not, but his much less famous contemporary Arya Phalgumitra's does figure at the point where the Third Phase of the Sthavīrăvali terminates. Seemingly, each one of the Sthavirāvali's five Phases ended soon after a redaction of the agamas took place. Thus, each time it had to be extended after the happening of a redaction. If a redaction of the agamas did happen in Phalgumitra's time, the place where the elders met for that purpose is not recorded in the available literature. (No redaction had been undertaken after the Valabhi Synod II inc. A.D. 503/516.)

•

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7. Medieval sources specify this date : The computed date for Arya Skandila /
Sandila also accords with this date : the date thus seems probable. I reserve
detailed discussion on this date for a future paper. 8. For this Phase 5, in fact for the whole of the Sthaviravali, I have consulted
the Pattāvali-samuccaya, Ed. Muni Darśanavijaya, Śrī Caritra-Smāraka
granthmālā, Viramagām 1933, pp.1-11. 9. These two different dates are recorded, as specified in annotation 4, at the end of
the "Jinacaritra” section in some later manuscripts of the Paryusanakalpa. Muni Punyavijaya's edition does not give the second or alternative date, namely V.N.993/ A.D. 516: (Cf. his Kalpasūtra, Ahmedabad 1952, pp. 59-60, sutra 200). Valabhi Synod II was convoked for collating and reconciling the differences and divergencies in the versions fixed at the Mathura Synod (c. A.D. 363) chaired by Arya Skandila (or Sandila) and the contemporaneous Valabhi Synod I presided over by Arya Nāgārjuna of the Nägendra-śākhā. This fact is reported in the Kahävali of Bhadreśvara sūri (c. late 10th century A.D.: unpublished) and, if I correctly remember, in one of the commentaries by Malayagiri (c. 3rd quarter
of the 12th cent. A.D.). 10. As I recall, the noted epigrapher and historian H. P. Shastri favours Gupta as
the more probable sovereign power under which the Maitrakas ruled before
they became independent rulers. 11. Cf. the Thanamgasuttam and Samavāyamgasuttam, Ed. Muni Jarnbūvijaya, Jaina
Agama-Series No.3, Bombay 1985, p. 450. 12. Árya Syāma is credited in the two seventh century cūrņi commentaries on
the Brhatkalpasútra to have composed the Prathamānuyoga (embodying lives of the 24 tīrthankaras), the Gandikānuyoga (treating the lives of the Cakravartis, Vasudevas, and some other early great men), the Lokānuyoga (dealing, as its title suggests, with cosmology/cosmography), and some Saṁgrahanīs or collections of topical verses, some of which may have been inserted in the corpus of the agamas of the Saka and Kusāna periods and some of them apparently were utilized in the formulation of the texts of some of the Prakirnaka āgamic works. All of the works of Arya Syāma, however, are lost, but were available for consultation to the compiler of the Samavāyānga-sútra (c. A. D. 353/363). The cūrnis interpret the heading 'Lokānuyoga' in a way different from mine. However, as the title suggests, it must pertain to cosmology/cosmography. (For details and discussion on Arya Śyama and his contributions, see Punyavijayajī article, "Prathamānuyogaśāstra ane Tenā Pranetā Sthavira Arya Kālaka," (Gujarātī),

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Arya Bhadrabahu
Jäänänjali, Vadodara 1960, pp. 122-129. (This article originally was published in Acarya Sri Vijayavaallabhasüri Smaraka Grantha, Bombay 1956, pp. 49-56. 13. As I elsewhere have shown, the date of Deva vācaka is c. mid fifth century A.D. and not c. A. D. 400: (C). "Bhadräryäcārya ane Dattilācārya" Gujarati, Svädhyāya, Vol.14, Vadodara V.S.2037/A. D. 1981. This article has been incorporated in the author's Nirgrantha Aitihäsika Lekha-Samuccaya, pt. 1, Ahmedabad 2002, pp. 103-113.)
The hagiological table of Deva vācaka and of Devarddhi gani is as follows:
Deva vācaka (Nandisutra:
c. A.D. 450)
Dusya gani kṣamāśramaṇa
Sthiragupta kṣamāśramaṇa
Kumāradharma gani
Devarddhi kṣamasramaṇa (chaired Valabhi Synod II: c. A.D. 503 or 516)

147
Cf. here the annotation 36 for quotation.
See the "Uttaradhyayana niryukti," the Niryukti-sangraha, (comp.) Vijayajinendra süri, Śri Harṣapuspämṛta Jaina Granthamälä, Vol.189, Lakhabawal (Lakhābābal) 1989, 2.91, p. 373.
Bhadraryācārya
15. Muni Kalyanavijaya and, following his view, Pt. Malvaniya dated this work to the fifth century of Vikrama Era (c. A.D. 345-445). (See Kalyänavijaya, Vira nirvana Samvat aur Jaina Kälaganană, (Hindi), Jalor S. 1987/A.D. 1931, p.30, and D. Malvaniya, "Study of Titthogaliya," Bharatiya Puratattva (Muni Jinavijaya Felicitation Volume), Jaipur 1971, pp.129-138.) I would, on the basis of style and content, prefer the date c. A.D. 550 for this work: It must be available to the author of the Vyavahara-bhasya (c. late 6th cent.) which, as noted by Malvaniya, mentions this text: (Malvaniya, p.137). It is, however, not noted in the list of the Prakirnaka works in the Nandisutra (c. A.D. 450). This significant omission almost confirms the date I here have suggested.
16. It apparently is the latest among the earliest agamic bhāṣyas.
17. It is one of the two earliest extant curnis, the first being the Dasavaikālika-cūrṇi of Agastyasimha (c. A.D. 575). The time bracket A.D. 600-650 for the Avasyakacûrni was suggested, if I have remembered correctly, by Leumann. I have tested the validity of that date: It certainly is probable.

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18. Thiscūrni, like that on the Âcäränga and the one on the Sūtrakstänga, is younger
among that class ofāgamic exegetical literature. 19. Haribhadra (active c. A.D. 740-784), as guessed by earlier writers, apparently
had begun his literary career by writing vrttis in Sanskrit on the agamas like
the Nandi, the Anuyogadvāra, and the Āvasyaka in c. A. D. 750. 20. The Kahāvali of Bhadreśvara sūri is as yet unpublished. Prof. Harivallabha Bhayani
had assigned the task of its editing to Dr. Ramanik Shah. I am grateful to Dr. Shah for giving me the gist of the “Bhadrabāhu-kathă" incorporated in that medieval work. As for its date, see my paper, “Kahāvali-kartr Bhadreśvara sūrino Samaya," (Gujarati), Sambodhi Vol.12, Ahmedabad 1982-83. It has been included in the Nirgrantha Aitihäsika Lekha-Samuccaya, pt.1, Ahmedabad 2002, pp.103113. (There, the word was kartr' in the original rubric which here is replaced by
kartta.) 21. Sthavirāvalicarita or Parisistaparvan, (Ed.) Hermann Jacobi, sec. ed., Calcutta
1932, pp.242-248; and Śrī Parićiştaparva (Gujaräti), translator Rājasekhara sūri, Ahmedabad 1994, pp.182-186. The particulars on the content of the Parisistaparva
will be cited in this article at a relevant point in the discussion. 22. Bhagavati Aradhanā, pt.2. (Ed.) Pt. Kailāścandra Siddhantaśästri, Solapur 1978,
p.707. The work earlier has been identified as of the Yapaniya sect by Pt. Nathooram Premi, A. N. Upadhye, and even Pt. Kailashchandra Shastri agreed with this attribution. I forego citing references to their writings since not directly
relevant to the present discussion. 23. Tiloyapannatti, pt.1., Jivarāja Jaina Granthamälā 1, Sholapur V.S. 2000/A.D.
1944, 4. 1476-1482, p.338. 24. Harivamsapurāna, Jñanapitha Mürtidevi Jaina Granthamālā, Vol.27, sec. ed.,
Ed. Pannalal Jaina, Delhi/Varanasi 1972, 1. 60-61, p.7. 25. Satkhandāgama, pt. 1, (Eds.) Hiralal Jain and A.N. Upadhye, śrīmanta Setha
Sitābrāy Lakşmicandra Jaina Sahityoddhāraka Siddhānta Granthamālā 1, Sholapur 1973, pp.66-67; cf. there the Dhavala-tikā, the portion that concerns
with the hagiology of early pontiffs. 26. See B.K. Kharabadi, Vaddārādhane : A Study, Karnataka University Research
Publications Series : 38, Dharwad 1979. See there “6. The Story of the Sage
Bhadrabāhu," pp. 49-56. 27. Its editor Kharabadi ascribes the work to Śivakoti and dates it to the tenth century.
But Hampa Nagarajaiah has shown, on the basis of a reference in the Punyäsrava

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kathākośa (c. 11th cent. A.D.) that the author was one Bhrājisnu and because the work uses old Kannada, it may be dated to the ninth century : (Cf. his article, the "Ārādhanā Karnāta-tīkā," Jain Journal, Vol. XXXIII, No.4, April 1999, pp. 166
170.) 28. Ed. A.N. Upadhye, Singhi Series No. 17, Bambai (Mumbai, Bombay) 1943. 29. Ibid.,cf. there the Harisena's prasasti, pp. 355-356.
ra, Translator (in Hindi), Pt. Udayalalaji Kaslivval, Surat (1911 ?), pp.317-319. 31. In view of its importance, the text of this inscription is here fully quoted:
सिद्धम् स्वस्ति। जितम्भगवता श्रीसद्धर्म तीर्थ-विधायिना। वर्द्धमानेन सम्प्राप्त-सिद्ध-सौख्यामृतात्मना ॥१॥ लोकालोक-द्वयाधारस्वस्तु स्थास्तु चरिष्णु वा। संविदालोक-शक्तिः स्वाव्यश्नुते यस्य केवला ।।२।। जगत्यचिन्त्य-माहात्म्य-पूजातिशयमीयुषः । तीर्थकृन्नाम-पुण्यौघ-महार्हन्त्यमुपेयुषः ॥३॥ तदनु श्री-विशालयम् (लायाम्) जयत्यद्य जगद्धितम् ।
तस्य शासनमव्याजं प्रवादि-मत-शासनम् ॥४॥ अथ खलु सकल-जगदुदय-करणोदित-निरतिशय-गुणास्पदीभूत-परमजिन-शासनसरस्समभिवद्धित-भव्यजन-कमल-विकसन-वितिमिर-गुण-किरण-सहस्र-महोति महावीर-सवितरि परिनिर्वृते भगवत्परमर्षि-गौतम-गणधर-साक्षाच्छिष्य लोहार्य-जम्बु-विष्णुदेवापराजित-गोवर्द्धनभद्रबाहु-विशाख-प्रोष्ठिल-कृत्तिकार्य - जयनाम सिद्धार्थ धृतिषेणबुद्धिलादि-गुरुपरम्परीणक्रमाभ्यागत-महापुरुषसन्तति-समवद्योतितान्वय-भद्रबाह-स्वामिना उज्जयन्या-मष्टाङ्ग महानिमित्त-तत्त्वज्ञेन त्रैकाल्य-दशिना निमित्तेन द्वादश-संवत्सर-काल-वैषम्यमुपलभ्य कथिते सर्व्वस्स उत्तरापथाइक्षिणापथम्प्रस्थितः कमेणैव जनपदमनेक-ग्राम-शत-सङ्ख्यं मदित-जन-धन-कनक-सस्य गो-महिषा-जावि-कल-समाकीर्णम्प्राप्तवान् अतः आचार्यः प्रभाचन्द्रो नामावनितल-ललामभूतेऽथास्मिन्कटवप्र-नामकोपलक्षिते विविध-तरुवर-कुसुम-दलावलि-विरचना-शबल-विपुल सजलजलद-निवह-नीलोपल-तले वराह-द्वीपि-व्याघ्रः-तरक्षु-व्याल-मृगकुलोपचितोपत्यक-कन्दरदरी-महागुहागहनाभोगवति समुत्तुङ्ग-श्रृङ्गे सिखरिणि जीवित शेषमल्पतर-कालमवबुध्यात्मनः सुचरिततपस्समाधिमाराधयितुमापृच्छय निरवसेषेण सङ्गं विसृज्य शिष्येणैकेन पृथुलतरास्तीर्ण-तलासु शिलासु शीतलासु स्वदेहं संन्यस्याराधितवान् कमेण सप्त-शतमृषीणामाराधितमिति जयतु जिन-शासनमिति। (For the source,see Hiralal Jaina,Jain-Silalekha-sangrahah, pt. 1. Manikyacandra
Digambara-Jaina-Granthamālā, vol. 28, Bombay (1928?), 1-2. 32. For the details, see the above-cited work and the "Introduction" by the compiler.

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33. See the "Introduction," Epigraphia Carnatica, Vol.II, Institute of Kannada Studies, University of Mysore, Mysore 1973, pp.ixxiv-ixxvi.
34. These have been completely ignored by all of the writers on Bhadrabahu who exclusively used southern sources. (The Digambara writers, understandably, recognize only Digambara månya sources.)
Jambu-jyoti
35. Some three decades ago, U.P. Shah, in the course of a personal discussion, had conveyed to me his thinking about interpreting this word. I here have followed it. 36. The concerned verse is as follows:
जसभद्द तुंगिय वंदे संभूयं चेव माठरं । भबाहुं य पाइणं शुलभ च गोयमं । नन्दीसूत्र १.६.२४.
(Ed. Punyavijaya muni, Jaina-Agama-Granthamālā, Vol. 1, Mumbai [Bombay] 1968, p. 6). Also see the Tirthavakālika-prakirṇaka.
37. After all, kharvata means a relatively smaller settlement. And when it is prefixed by the term 'Dāsī,' it was an humble place, indeed of lesser consequence.
38. Vaḍda Aradhane, pp. 49-50.
39. Bṛhadkathākoša, p. 317.
The great historian R.C. Majumdar, apparently on the basis of the sākhā names of the Godāsa-gana, had reached the conclusion that Bhadrabahu hailed from Bengal. As it happened, his relevant published works currently are not handy. 41. Tämraliptikā, Kotivarṣīyä, and Pundravardhanikā emanate from Tämralipti, Kotivarsa, and Pundravardhana, as earlier inferred here; and all of these towns are located in Bengal under their modern derivative appelations.

Recent researches tend to bring down the date of Gautama Buddha by about a century, toward c. B.C. 400-383, with a few years plus or minus. If this date finally holds, then Arhat Vardhamana's date must also slide down and stabilize at c. B.C. 415-400 since, according to the Pāli sources, he predeceased Buddha. This date does not seem incompatible with the computable time-brackets for the successors of Vardhamana. The traditionally held B.C. 527 as the date of Vardhamana's nirvana, of course, is totally unrealistic on several counts, just as it upsets several firmly established historical dates, synchronisms, and timebrackets, an issue that cannot be dealt with in this article.
43. While citing the actual past instances of friars who had suffered from one or the other type of the 22 pariṣahas or visiting sufferings noted in the agamas, for

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151
the visitation of the sita-parīşaha or suffering due to severe cold, it cites this episode as a typical instance. See the Uttarādhyayana-niryukti 2. 91 inside
the Niryuktisargraha, p. 373. 44. Painnayasuttań pt. 1, Ed. Muni Punyavijaya, Jaina-Agama-Granthamālā Vol.
17, (Pt. 1), Bombay 1984, p. 184. See the Uttaradhyayana-curni, Rishabhadeo Kesharimal, Ratlam 1933, pp. 56
57. 46. Ibid. 47. Tiloyapannati, pt. 1, 4. 1476-1482. (Eds. A. N. Upadhye and Hiralal Jain, Jivaraj
Jaina Granthamālā No. 1, Sholapur 1943, p. 338. 48. Quoted here in the annotation 31 along with the particulars on its published
source. 49. Ed. Pt. Darbarical Kothiya, Mānikyacandra-Jaina-Granthamālā, Vol. 32, pt. 1,
Bombay 1930, p. 6, 1, 60-62. 50. See the Dhavalā tīká in the Satkhandāgama, 1-1-1, Eds. Pt. Foolchandra and
Pt. Hiralal, Amaravati 1939, pp. 65-66. 51. The nomens such as Nandi, Nandimitra et cetera were to come into vogue in
times posterior to Mauryan in Indian cultural history. 52. However, I intend to throw a small suggestion in the concluding remarks of
the paper. 53. Brhatkahākośa, p. 318. 54.
वंदामि भद्दबाई पाईणं चरिम सयलसुयनाणि । सुत्तस्स कारगमिसिं दसासु कप्पे य ववहारे॥
—29Sgnatiufteffit 5.8., 55. Already noted in the relevant foregoing pages. 56. However, Schubring has pointed out the anomalous situation in the Doctrine of
the Jaina, sec. ed. 2000, Delhi, pp. 109-112. 57. This statement is based on the information I got from late Pt. Malvaniya. I have
yet to verify it with the Pāli texts. 58. This is rather strange, because the mendicants, in that early age, preferred the nude
state. 59. See particularly the last portion of the Kalpa, namely the sixth uddeśa, its end
part and its commentaries. For the Kalpa and the Vyavahāra, I have used Muni Kanhayālāl's edition, Rajkot 1969.

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M. A. Dhaky
As inferred from a few Mathura inscriptions.
61. The precise date will depend on the date of beginning of the Kuṣāna Era. 62. That surmise seems reasonable in the present state of available evidence. 63. See the Vyavahāra-sūtra, eighth uddeśa.
64. The study of the oldest portions of the Acaränga Book I leads one to such a conclusion.
152
35595
The tradition is recorded in the pre-medieval Svetämbara literature. 66. See my article "On the Implication of the Nāgnya Parīṣaha in the Tattvärthadhigama sutra," Jainism and Prakrit in Anciut and Medieval India, Ed. N. N. Bhattacharya, Delhi 1994, pp. 413-419.
67. See the Kalpa, third Uddeśa.
ཆབ
See the Uttaradhyayana sutra, modelled upon the severe ascetical style of Arhat Vardhamana himself as narrated in the Uvadhana sütta of Acaränga I.
69. Kalpa, second Uddeśa.
70. Ibid.
Jambu-jyoti
A few sutras taken from such works later were incorporated in the Sthänänga.
72. Such as possibly the lost Kalpakalpa.
73. These fall within the pre-Mauryan to the Kusana times.
74. See the details of content and style of each chapter and the strata within them. 75. This seems plausible in view of the presence of uncomformities and heterogeneity noticeable in the character of the content.
76. Quotations from the version of the Kalpa possessed by the Yapaniya sect figuring in Aparajita sūri's commentary (c. late 8th cent. A. D.) on the Aradhana of Sivārya would lead to such an inference. The Botika-Kṣapanaka sect was founded by the schismic Arya Sivabhuti who separated from the main stream Nirgrantha Church somedate in the second century A. D. The Yapaniya sect apparently was the off-shoot of the Botika settled in northern Karnataka.
77. The discussion needs a very detailed analysis of the texts in question, which, of course, cannot be attempted in this paper.
78. Same remarks hold here, too, as they do in the context of the annotation 77. This is the view largely held by the pundits of the Digambara sect and by those
79.
who follow them.
∞

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80.
बारसअंगवियाणं चउदसपुव्वंगविउलवित्यरणं । सुयणाणि भद्दबाहू गमियगुरुभयवओ जयओ।
-UM413 8.2. (utafize: Ed. Pt. Pannalal Soni, Mänikyacandra-Digambara-Jaina
-Granthamälä, Vol. 17, Bombay, V. S. 1977 (A.D. 1927], p. 127.) 81. Unfortunately, the original article by A. M. Ghatage is not handy. If my memory
does not play me false, it had appeared in one of the issues of the Jaina Gazette. 82. Hence some scholars have concluded that he was a later and hence different
Bhadrabāhu about whose date the opinions widely differed. 83. See here the entire text of the inscription cited under annotation 31. 84. However, we must remember that, at least three temples were built on that hill
top to the north of this earliest inscription engraved on the surface of the groundrock there. Could these have covered and hence concealed beneath them some
still earlier inscriptions ? 85. At least I so for have not come across the examples of the personal names ending
with 'candra' in the earlier context. 86.
रात्रे: कृति प्रभाचन्द्रस्य
- yay 8-3-860 For discussion, see Nathooram Premi, Jaina Sähitya aur Itihäsa (Hindi),
Samsodhitasāhityamälä, Vol. 1., Bambai (Mumbai, Bombay) 1956, p. 74. 87. For elucidation, see Premi, "Virasena, Jinasena aur Gunabhadra," Jaina Sāhitya.,
p.. 137 88. Provided, of course, the belief/tradition recorded there is sufficiantly accurate.
मउडधरेसुं चरिमो जिणदिक्ख धरदि चंदगुत्तो य । तत्तो मउडधरा दुप्यवज्जं णेव गण्हंति ।।
- fasit Querit 8-8868 90. I have based this passage on the information noted in the Introduction by
Pt. Vijayamurti-his compilation earlier referred to here-as also the Introduction by the editiors of the Epigraphia Carnatica, Vol. I, (sec. ed.), Mysore, and
the observations thereof. 91. I have based this passage also on the information noted in the Introduction by
Pt. Vijayamurti in the introduction by the editiors of the Epigraphia Carnatica,
Vol. I, Mysore and the observations thereof. 92. Bhagaveti Ārādhanā, p. 707.
89.

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M. A. Dhaky
Jambū-jyoti
93. For particulars on the source, see here annotations 26 and 27. 94. Vadda-Ārādhane, p. 55. 95. It also comes into conflict with the traditions preserved in the sixth century and
subsequent works of the Śvetāmbara Church. 96. Brhadkathākośa, pp. 316-318. 97. According to the Sthavirāvali of the Paryusanä-kalpa, he was the disciple of Arya
Sambutavijaya. From his medieval biographical sources, he is known to be the son of Sagadāla (Sakatāra), minister of Nanda, and had seven sisters. Apparently, he must be the youngest child of Sakatāra and must be in his prime of life when sent to Bhadrabāhu by the Sangha. His future disciple, Arya Suhasti, was to be the preceptor of Maurya Samprati, grandson of Asoka, arguably in the pontiff's
advanced age. 98. This account is given, among the older sources, in the Tirthāvakālika and
the Kahāvali. 99. See the Praśamaratiprakarana, Ed. Pt. Raj Kumar, Srimad-Rājacandra-Jaina
Šāstramālā, Agas V. S. 2044/A. D. 1988, pp. 64, 65. 100. He is a medieval author, a namesake of the famous Haribhadra sūri of the eighth
century. 101. Prasamarati., p. 65. I suspect that the "Bhadrabāhu-gandikā' (probably a chapter
of the lost Gandikānuyoga of Arya Syāma, c. 1st cent. B. C. - A. D.) may have contained this myth and this may have been the source of the tradition before
Umāsvāti. 102. ŚrimadĀvasyakasūtram (Uttarabhāgah), Ratlam 1929, p. 187. 103. According to the cūrni, the episode of the visit of the sisters of Sthūlabhadra took
place at the devakulikā when Bhadrabahu and he were camping at, or close by,
Pātaliputra. 104. For particulars, see annotation 21.. 105. For details, see the Sthavirāvali. 106. This is the view of the Indian historians, a few of whom, as I recall, also suggested
B. C. 325 for that event. The Greek sources state it to be B. C. 312. 107. Pariśīstaparva, translation, p. 176. 108. The Parisistaparva of Hemacanda (betweenc. A.D. 1160-1170) so states. 109. Further confusion is added by the interpreters of the Śravanabelgola inscription
of c. A. D. 600.

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Bhadrabahu 155 110. Some scholars think that it was the Tarai area of Nepala. one, contemporary of Candragupta; 2) The second of the period of Maurya Samprati; 3) The third, a contemporary of the Digambara Guptigupta who was Candragupta; 4) The fourth a contemporary of Varahamihira who was the author of the Niryuktis; and the fifth was a Svetambara'monk who composed the Jinasahasranama-stotra. See, however, Schubring's obervation based on Leumann's statement: 'IEUMANN, however, points out that, in this list that already existed in the eighth century, "the second Bh. is but a chronistic repetation..."' (The Doctrine., p. 53.) 112. See R. Champakalakshmi, "9 South India," Jaina Art and Architecture, Vol. 1, (Ed. A. Ghosh), Bharatiya Jnanapitha, New Delhi 1974, pp. 92-103. 113. This, to me, seems a plausibility. Schubring, on a related point, thus notes: "The inner reasons are explained by IEUMANN, Ubersicht p. 26f." (The Doctrine., p. 47, infra.) What these 'inner reasons' in their perception were, cannot be guessed untill we have the translation in English of the Leumann's famous and oft-referred to work. 114. The recent discovery of the remains of a Jaina stupa at Vaddamanu founded C. B. C. the first century. (Cf. T. V. G. Shastri et al, Vaddamanu Excavations (1981-85), Birla Archaeological and Cultural Institute, Hyderabad, Hyderabad 1992. 115. Implicitly from Bengal and Orissa. It is easier to enter Andhradesa by land route; and to the Tamil country, by sea route, particularly to the Pandyan country via some port such as Nagapattinam. 116. These date from c. A. D. 300 in Gangavadi and from c. A. D. 464 or so in Kadambavadi. (I here forgo stating the related details.) ODO