Page Text
________________
Vol IV ]
Trans
NEW STUDIES IN SOUTH INDIA JAINISM.
"
By him, a bee at the divine lotus feet of Ajitasena Pandita Deva, magnanimous, while abandoning his body by means of the Sallêkhana famous in the Jaina Agamas, so that all the sangha rejoiced at the sight of the nature of his penance, was delivered improptu this perfect verse, displaying the ripeness of his mind."
Sall khana may therefore be described as a special 'ideosyncracy' of Jainism'
Trans
157
The first to perform this aweful rite of Sallekhana on this Hill, Katavapra, was Bhadrabahu, the last of the Sruta kewalis; this fact bring us directly to the Southern migration of the Jaina rishiganas from Ujjaini in North India and the passage in the inscription referring to the Katavapra Hill. The passage brings out in simple naturalis. tic description how awefully beautiful it was and suggests a phase of naturalism which has left its environmental mark on the awefully beautiful and simple and high, plain lives and characters of successive Jaina munis, perhaps Vānaprasthas and Sanyasis as well, that carried forward to later generations in South India the traditions of spiritual realisation, sanctified scholarship and desciplined' senseconquest' No wonder that their admiring followers had left behind them these authentic data of their admiration and also venerating and exultant praises of Bhadrabahu Sritakevali, who thus rejuvinated South Indian Jainism which, by his time must have lost touch with its North Indian homelands. Here below are given a few specimens of such commendatory compositions, reminders, as it were, to contemporary generations, of that ancestral North Indian migration, corresponding to that of Agastya to 'Chôla mandala' recorded in Puranic Literature and vernacular classics of South Indian Languages:--
.
(a) Varnnaih kuthan-nu mahimā bhana Bhadrabahormmōhōru-malla-mada-marddana-vritta-bahöh
yach-chhishyatāpta-sukritēna sa chandra-guptas -susrushyatē sma suchiram vanadēvatābhih!'
"Worthy is it not of being described, the greatness of Bhadrabahu, say,-stout of arm in subduing the pride of
| SR No. | 010062 |
| Book Title | Jain Siddhant Bhaskar |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Hiralal Jain, Others |
| Publisher | ZZZ Unknown |
| Publication Year | 1940 |
| Total Pages | 143 |
| Language | Hindi |
| Classification | Book_Devnagari |
| File Size | 7 MB |