History of Jaina Monachism

SR No.: 001727
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: S B Deo
Publisher: Deccan College Research Institute
Publication Year: 1956
Total Pages: 616
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Principle, & History
File Size: 12 MB

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S. B. DEO
to corroborate these facts, but the mass of traditions around them, and the fact that even the Buddhist texts claim the first and the last king among the three mentioned above, tend to suggest that these kings who were great and powerful, did their best to establish the indigenous religions firm in Magadha as far back as the sixth-fifth century B.C.
The Nandas:
The successors of the Siśunāgas were the Nandas, and the Avaśyakasutra167 makes the first king the son of a barber from a courtesan.
The very fact of their non-Brahmin origin tends to lend support to Jaina accounts of them which show that they were Jainas.
The Khāravela inscription, however, tends to suggest that they had invaded Kalinga and had carried off the image of a Jina. This does not mean, however, that the Nanda empire pertained only to these two provinces. According to RAYCHAUDHARI, “Several Mysore inscriptions state that Kuntala a province which included the southern part of the Bombay Presidency and the north of Mysore, was ruled by the Nandas."168
Inspite of this wide expanse of the Nanda empire, it is difficult to say in what parts they helped Jainism to flourish. The following, however, are the points to be gathered regarding them from the Jaina sources.
(i) The subodhikā tīkā169 on the Kalpasūtra, says that the ininister of the ninth Nanda was a certain Sagadāla who was a Jaina, and who was the father of a famous Jaina ācārya Sthūlabhadra. As the ministership of the Nandas was awarded in a hereditary fashion, 170 Sthūlabhadra's brother succeeded his father, while Sthūlabhadra joined the Jaina order of monks.
(ii) We have already referred to the Khäravela inscription which says that that king in the twelfth year of his reign brought back the image of the Kalingajina stolen away by the Nandarāja from Kalinga to Magadha (nandarāja-nītam ca kalingajina sannivesam... gaha-ratanāna padihārehi).171 This shows that not only the Nandas were devotees of Jainism, but that at their time Jainism was somewhat an established religion of a community in Kalinga.
167. p. 690. 168. Op. cit., p. 235. 169. p. 162. 170. Avaśyaka, p. 692. 171. BARUA, I. H. Q., XIV, pp. 259ff.