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 217

JAINISM IN NORTH INDIA soldiers and chariots to the west in defiance of Satakarni; and in his fourth year he humbled the Rashtrikas of the Maratha country and Bhojakas of Berar, both under the domination of the Andhra king of Pratishthana. Such expeditions were undoubtedly in the nature of a challenge to the predominant power of the Deccan, but they appear not to have been pursued beyond the limit of safety In the words of Professor Rapson. "We may suppose that the armies of Kharavela passed the valley of Mahanadi, and over the watershed into the valleys of Godavari and its great tributaries, the Wainganga and the Wardha. They could thus invade territory which the Andhra monarch regarded as lying within the realm, but it is not stated, and there are no grounds for surmising, that the forces of the Kalingas and the Andhras came into actual conflict on either of these occasions, or that any important political results followed." 2 This is not to minimise the greatness of the extent of Kharavela's conquests. No doubt as a military leader he played a great part in the political affairs of his time, but nothing more. He could very well stand by the side of the great Pushyamitra or the great Salivahana, but if, as the expeditions of his second and fourth years seem to indicate, his ambition led him to entertain the project of wresting the suzerainty from the Andhra king of Prathisthana, the attempt must be held to have failed. That was not possible for him, and that is not what is meant by the inscription. In his fifth year Kharavela caused a canal that was excavated in the year 108 of King Nanda, and the roads of Tanasuliya or Tosali, to enter the aty of Kalinga 4 This and many other accurate statements and year figures in the body of the inscription made scholars like Fleet, Smith and others infer that a careful chronicle was kept at Orissa, and that all these long periods could not be reckoned without an era. That the era taken into consideration here is the Nanda era is clear from the text of the line itself It is 1 The modern Parthan, on the north bank of the Godavery in the Aurangabad district of Hyderabad, is famous in literature as the capital of King Satakornt (Sitavihana or Sales aliana) and his son Sakti-kumara Rapson, CH1,1, 586 * We would be justified an accepting that the capital of Khiraucla was Tosali, mi w kosc neighbourhood the Hathigumphi cane and River Pruchi are to be found According to Mir Haraprasad Sastr, Tosali is etymologically identical With Dhauli, the name of the place where a sect of the Kalinga edicts exists --Smith, op cit, p 540 Cf J BORS, L, P 390 * See Fleet, JRAS, 1910, p 828, Smith, op cit, p 545 168