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 238

MATHURA INSCRIPTIONS of the festival of Indra, found it difficult to come on the fifth of Bhadrapada, and accordingly the great Guru is said to have changed his appointment to a day earlier--viz. the fourth of Bhadrapada. Since then the whole Jaina community have begun the fast on the fourth, though very late in history with the rise of certain Gacchas the fourth was replaced by the fifth of the same month.Tus cvent, if it is true, is significant from two points of view--the first, that it refers to the Svetambara contact with the south, and secondly, because it alludes to a Jaina prince in the Deccan who was important enough to be so much respected by a great saint like Kalakacarya, and who had a share in fixing the date of an important festival of the Jainas like Pajqusana. Coming to Vikramaditya, the successor of Gardablulla, Jaina sources tell us that Siddhasena Divakara, one of the most prominent stars of the history of Jaina literature, lzved about this time at the king's court, and they also credit him with the conversion of the great Vikrama, and according to Mrs Stevenson of Devapala, "kang of Kumarapura" as well 4 Two other events are likewise supposed to have happened about this time--the defeat of the Buddhists in a great argument by a famous Jaina controversialist, an ascetic called Arya Khaputa, who lived in Broach $; and the foundation of Palitana, where Satrunjaya, the holiest of the Jaina Tirthas, is situated. The Kharataragaccha Paitavalt tells us that Vajrasyami, (496-584 v.), the sixteenth on the list, extended the Jaina religion southward in the kingdom of the Bauddhas. The second event, 1 BH In faunt num, gia Uni-Kalaxzcxra-kaha, Y 5P 5 C Stevenson (Mrs), op cit, p 76 This, as Klatt tells us, 19 supported by the Pattacah of the. Tapagaccha (I.A, X, P 251), on the other hand, the Kharataragaccha Pattavalt informs us that the Kalaka, who transferred the Paryushanaparvan, lived in 998 V, and that there were two more of the same name prior to him, one of whom lived in 458 V and was connected with Gardabhills -IA,1,P 247 That the King Satayane was a devout Jame is clear from the Kalahdcarya-hatha (v 50-54, pp 4-5), but it is not know who he was Pratishthanapura is known to us as the western capital of the Satavahapas Jama tradition claims Hala of this dynasty as belonging to its own rehgion of Glasenapp, Der Janismus, P 68, Jhaveri, NirvanaKaliha, Int, P 3. "He (Siddhasens Divakara) converted Vikramaditya 470 years after Mahavira's Nirvana"--Klatt, op cit, p 247 Cf bid, p 251, Edgerton, op cit, pp 251 ff , Stevenson (Alrs), op cit,p 17; Tayney, op.cit, pp 116 f, MAR, 1928, p 10 Cf Stevenson Airs), op and loc at विद्यासिद्धा सायखपुटा आचार्याः, भूगुकच्छे बुद्धो निर्गतः, पादयोः पतितः -Auasyaha-Sutra, PP 411-412 f Jhaven, op and loc at * Cf thd, Int , xix, Stevenson (Ars), op cit, pp 77-78 TC Klatt, op et, 247, Hemacandra, Pansishtaparan, Canto XII, vv. 311,388, pasyaha-Sutra, p 295 189