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 231

ICOS JAINISM IN NORTH INDIA were at the Kayya Nishidi or the Kumari Hill. That this Nishidi was a Nishidi of the Arhat is proved by the next line. Nishidi or Nishidhi seems to have been employed in Jaina literature as figuratively denoting ornamental tombs of their saints, but meaning thereby resting-places. Writing on this Dr Fleet says: "As regards the word Nisidhi -which also occurs as Nisdhi, Nishidhi and Nishidige-Mr K. B Pathak tells me that it is still used by the older members of the Jamna community, and that it means 'a tomb erected over the remains of a Jaina ascetic.' And he has given me the following passage from the Upasargakevaligala Kathe in which it occurs "Rsh-Samudayam=cllam dakshinapathadim bamdu bhattarara nishidiyan=eydid-agal, etc. : "The whole assemblage of the saints having come by the region of the south, and having arrived at the Nishadh of the venerable one, etc." 2 The Nashidhi at the Kumari Hill, where the inscription is engraved, seems to be not an ornamental tomb but a real Stupa, for it is qualified by Kayya,"corporeal" (i.e."having remains of the body'). Taking the inscription into consideration Mr Jayaswal observes. "Thus it seems that the Jainas called therr Stupas or Cartyas, Nishidis. The Jaina Stupa discovered at Mathura and the datum of Bhadrabahw-carita saying that the disciples of Bhadrabahu worshipped the bones of their master establish the fact that the Jamas (at any rate the Digambaras) observed the practices of erecting monuments on the remains of their teachers."3 By the by, 15 may be mentioned here that this was a custom confined not only to the Jainas or the Bauddhas, but to erect monuments--Cartyas -in memory of teachers had been a national custom. As laid down before, line fifteen also places before us Kharavela in the robes of a devout Jamna. It talks of some act being done by Kharavela for ascetics and recluse philosophers, but as some words are missing in the beginning of the line it is not possible to know actually what that act must have been Anyhow it is clearly put down that the act was meant for "accomplished Sramanas, tor those of good deeds, for the wise ones from a hundred directions, and for the leaders of Samghas." 4 1 EI,, 274 1.4, xu , p. 99 * J.BORS, v,p 889 gafar AW-ULETI -EGR of Ind, wv, p 402, end soll, P 20 182