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 175

JAINISM IN NORTH INDIA This, as seen before, happened one hundred and fifty years after the Nirvana of Mahavira. Here arise two difficulties, that if, as the Jaina and other sources inform us, it was Canakya alone who was at the back of the fall of the Nandas, what was the ancestry of Candragupta ? and again, how is it that Canakya did not proclaim himself the Emperor of Magadha? Of the two the problem of the ancestry of Candragupta is insoluble The Jaina tradition represents him as the son of a daughter of the chief of the village of the feeders of the king's peacocks (Mayura-poshaka). According to Smith the dynasty founded by Candragupta is said to be a derivative from Mura, his mother's or grandmother's name 3 The Hindus connect the Mauryas with the Nandas. Katha-Sarit-Sagara refers to Candragupta as a son of the Nandas. The Mahavamsa calls him a scion of the Moriya clan. In the Drvyavadana Bindusara, the son of Candragupta, clamms to be a Kshatriya Murdhabhishekta. In the same work Asoka, the son of Bindusara, calls himself a Kshatriya. In the Mahaparinibbana Sutta the Moriyas are represented as the ruling clan of Pipphalivana, and as belonging to the Kshatrya caste ? Taking mto consideration all these facts, Dr Raychaudhuri observes: "It is, therefore, practically certain that Candragupta belonged to a Kshatriya community-viz the Moriya (Maurya) clan. In the sixth century B.c. the Moriyas were the ruling clan of the little republic of Pipphaliyana. They must have been absorbed mto the Magadhan Empire along with the other states of Eastern India During the inglorious reign of Agrammes, when there was general disaffection amongst his subjects, the Moriyas evidently came into prominence, probably under the leadership of Candragupta. With the help of Kautilya, also called Canakya or Vishnugupta, son of a Brahmana of Taxila, he overthrew the infamous Nanda" 1 "We learn from the Kautilya's Arthasastra, Kamandak's Natusara, the Puranas, the Mahavamsa and the Mudrurdhshasa that the Nanda dynasty was overthrohy Kautilya, the famous minister of Candragupta Maurya"-Raychaudhuri, op and 104 el "A Brahman Kautilya will uproot them all, and after they have enjoyed the ears 100 years, it will pass to the Mauryas "--Pargiter, op cit, p 60 Cf Avasyaha-Sutra, pp 483-484, Hemacandra, op cit, v 240 a Cy Smith, op aat, P 128 * Cf Taxney (ed Penzer), op art,1, p 57 "Moryanam Khattiyanam bamse etc "-Geiger, op cit, p 80 * "Aham Teja kshatryo murdhabhishektah -Cowell and Neil, Droydondana, P 870 7 Rhys Davids, SB.E, 11, PP 184-185 According to the Jamas Cinakya was a native of Canaka, a village of the God district Cf Jacobi, op cit, p 55, Apasyaha-Satra, P 498 * Raychaudhuri, op cit, pp 105-166 182