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 233

tons, especially thing else betonisfied with & JAINISM IN NORTH INDIA of those who had preferred to cling at any risk to the hallowed scenes at home. Our text thus serves as a good confirmation of the tradition about the controversy or the loss of certain Jaina texts in the time of Candragupta; and Kalmga, being more or less under the influence of Bhadrabahu and his colleagues in the south, evidently did not accept the restoration of the council which met in Magadha.? The last line of the inscription-namely, the seventeenth-1s also to be read with a portion of the previous line, and it characterises in short the chief attributes of Kharavela, and puts down in a fer words the extent of his power. There may be certain exaggerations, especially in this part of the inscription, and it is natural, but since there is nothing else before us to make a comparative study of Kharavela we shall remain satisfied with a literal translation of the line, which runs as follows. "He is the King of Prosperity (Kshema), the King of Extension (of the Empire) (or, a King to the old people'), a King to the Bhikshus (or, though king yet a Bhrkshu), the King of Dharma who has been seeing to, listening to and experiencing welfare (Kalyanas). ... "King Kharavela-Sri, the great conqueror, descended from a family of the dynasty of royal sages, one whose empire has been extended, with an empire which is kept protected by the leader of the empire (or army), one whose chariots and army bave not been obstructed, one who is the restorer of every temple, one who respects every sect, one who is an expert by virtue of special qualities Here ends the autobiography of Bhakshuraja Klaravela, the great Emperor of Kalinga and one of the greatest royal patrons 01 the Jaina faith. The invocation of the Arhats and Siddhas in the first line, the building of temples and caves for the Jaina Stamanas, the gifts of lands and other accessories to the Yapa professors, and last but not least the restoration of the image of the Jina l. Kalinga carried away by King Nanda prove beyond doubt that Kharavela was a Jaina. He came to the throne about 183 B C., AC the age of twenty-four. At the time of his first invasion of Magadha he was only thirty-two, and at the time of the second he was 1 This council fixed the canon of the Jaing sacred literature, consisting of eleven Angas and fourteen Priruas खमराजा सवटराजा अनभवतो कलाणानि सव- पासड-पूनको . खारवलासा. JBORS,11 ,p 403, and xiit, 286 184