Jainism in North India

SR No.: 011067
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Chimanlal J Shah
Publisher: Longmans Green and Compny London
Publication Year: 1932
Total Pages: 66
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 3 MB

Page 127

JAINISM IN NORTH INDIA Mallaki clans and the enghteen Ganarajas of Kasi-Kosala."1 Tlus statement of the learned scholar is also supported by the Jaina annals.2 "It is related," observes Dr Jacobi, " that King Cetaka, whom Kunika, king of Campa, prepared to attack with a strong army, called together the eighteen confederate kings of Kasi and Kosala, the Licchayis and Mallakas, and asked them whether they would satisfy Kunika's demands or go to war with him. Again on the death of Mahavira the eighteen confederate kings, mentioned above, instituted a festival to be held in memory of that event." 3 From all this it seems highly probable that of all these confederate clans one common characteristic was that most of them had directly or indirectly come under the influence of Mahavira or his teaching. Whether all of them were Jainas by faith or not one cannot say, but this much is certain, that there was something more solid than mere lip-sympathy on their part. Taking first the Videhans, we find that they "had their capital at Mithila, which is identified by some scholars with the small town of Janakpur, just within the Nepal border. But a section of them may have settled in Vasali. To this section probably belonged the princess Trisala, also called Videhadatta, mother of Mahavira."! As already mentioned, we find scattered here and there direct references to Mahavira's relations with the Videhans in the Jaina Sutras. Says the Acaranga-Sutra: "His (Mahavira's) mother had three names : Treala, Videhadatta and Priyakarini." 5 "In that period, in that age, the Venerable ascetic Mahavira, a Jnatri Kshatriya, Jnatriputra, a native of Videha, a prince of Videha, lived thirty years under the name of . Videha.'"6 Coming next to the Kalpa-Sutra: "The Venerable ascetic Mahavira ...; a Jnatri Kshatriya, the son of a Jnatri Kshatriya; the moon of the clan of the Jnatris; a Videha, the son of Vide Pradhan, op cit, p. 215 THER T EE Meteo grcala HUST4Wt . - Bhagavat, sut 300, p 016 Cf Hamacandre, op cit, p 165. Jacobi, SDC, w1, Int , p v CE ibid, 200, Law (BC), Some Kshalnya Inber of incient India, 11, Raychaudhuri, op cit,p 128 : Bhagavali, sid 300, p 310 TIemicondra, on and local , Kalpa-Safra, Subhodhala-Tika, sul 128, p 121 , Pradhan, op cul., pp 128-229, Hoernic, op al, 1), Appendix II, pp 50-60 Roychaudhuri, op cit, p 7), HAUR O T T HESITE AT91., fruct 9 stefar utafut .-Kalpa-Sulra, Subodhit.a-7mc, stt 100, 80 Jacobs, op af, p 103 * Ibid, p 101 86