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TRIBES IN ANCIENT INDIA
looked upon and dreaded as the appearance of a bad omen. It was evidently not easy to convert Udayana and members of the royal family to the new faith. There seems to be some truth in the Buddhist legends that the devotion of Queen Sāmāvati and her attendants, and the martyrdom suffered by them, were greatly instrumental in bringing about a change of heart in Udayana and making him a supporter of Buddhism.? Here again the banker Ghosita is indirectly concerned, for Sāmāvati was brought up with his family.
The influence of Jainism over Kaušāmbi does not appear to have been extensive. However, Kaušāmbi is known to the Jainas as the sacred place where Vardhamāna Mahāvīra was worshipped even by the Sun and Moon; and where Chandanā attained to Kaivalya. Kaušāmbi is also known to the Jainas as the place hallowed by the birth, career and death of Jina Prabha Sūri. The Pabhosā rock cave was excavated in about the first century B.C. for the residence of the Kāśyapīya arahats.
In the inscription of the goldsmiths of Kausāmbi, dated Samvat 1621 (1565 A.D.) we find that six of them call themselves Vaisnavas, although the record itself contains only the prayers of five leading goldsmiths and of thirteen of their employees to Ganeša and the god Bhairava ‘for favour'.
1 Rockhill, Life of the Buddha, p. 74. 2 Dhammapada Comm., I, pp. 208ff.
