Hathigumpha Inscription of Kharavela and Bhabru Edict of Asoka

SR No.: 006726
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Shashi Kant
Publisher: D K Print World
Publication Year: 2000
Total Pages: 196
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 16 MB

Page 153

Appendix III
127
Mahavira (the 24th Tirthankara), is said to have been married to Jitaśatru, King of Kalinga. Jitaśatru is also said to have offered the hand of his daughter Yasoda to Prince Mahavira. The Digambara tradition denies marriage, but the Svetambara tradition makes Mahavira not only marry Yasoda but also to beget a daughter, Priyadarśanā by name, who was to marry Jamāli. Jamāli joined Mahāvīra's Order and, incidentally, he happened to be the first dissenter in the 14th year of Mahavira's ministry.
Jitaśatru was in all probability a follower of Jainism as his close relationship with Mahavira seems to indicate. It cannot be said that at the time of Nanda King's invasion of Kalinga, a hundred years later, the king was a descendent of Jitasatru. But this much is confirmed by Khāravela's inscription that the personal faith of that royal family of Kalinga was Jainism because the Nanda King took away the Kalinga Jina (the image of Jina, Arahamta or Tirthankara, which was specially revered in Kalinga) as a war trophy.
Nandas and Jainism
The Nanda King took away the Kalinga Jina to Magadha and installed it in a temple where Khāravela himself worshipped it in his 12th regnal year (ref. L 12, p. 17 fn. 5, supra). It indicates that the Nanda King may have been an adherent of Jainism, otherwise he could have desecrated or destroyed the image. But his personal faith did not come in his way when dealing with statecraft, and he invaded and humiliated the Jain king of Kalinga for building up the Magadhan Empire
The tradition writers do not, however, appear to have done justice to the Nandas. The Brahmins made them Śūdra and the Buddhists called them napita (low caste of barber), because the Nandas did not subscribe to Brahmanism and Buddhism
Surprisingly the Jain tradition also does not call the Nandas, noble Kṣatriya, most probably because when the tradition was redacted it had been long forgotten that they were adherents of