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 257

JAINISM IN NORTH INDIA records of the Guptas begin from the year 82; and hence Dr Buhler has mghtly remarked, about the one which we have put down in the reign of Candragupta II, that if his conjecture about it were accepted, "its date, the year 57, is the earliest Gupta date yet found." 1 Besides these two Mathura inscriptions there are two more Jaina records connected with the Guptas. The first in chronological order is the Udayagiri cave inscription, which refers to the period of the early Gupta kings, and not to the reign of any particular sovereign. The recorded date, however, shows that it also belongs to the time of Kumaragupta I. It is dated, in words, in the year one hundred and six (A.D 425-426), on the fifth solar day of the dark fortnight of the month of Kartika. That it is a Jaina inscription is clear from the following translation of a part of the inscription "He (i.e. Samkara, whose name occurs in the 6th line) who has conquered the enemies (of religion), (and) 18 possessed of tranquillity and self-command, caused (and set up) in the mouth of (this) cave, this image of a Jina, richly endowed with (the embellishments of) the expanded hoods of a snake and an attendant female divinity, (and) having the name of Parava, the best of Jinas. He is, indeed, the disaple of the Saint, the Acarya Gosarman.. " etc. Thus the object of the Udayagiri cave inscription is to record the installation of an image of the Tirthankara Parsva or Parsvanatha at the mouth of the cave The other inscription, mentioned above, is the Kahaum Stone Pillar Inscription of Skandagupta 1, the successor of Kumaragupta 15 The grey-sandstone column on which the inscription is, stands at a short distance to the north of Kahaum village. The inscription itself refers to the reign of the early Gupta king, Skandagupta. It is dated, in words, in the year one hundred and forty-one (A D. 460-461), and in the month of Jyeshtha.. The object of the inscription is clear from the following passage of the record itself : 1 Buhler, op and loc cut * Cf. Fiect, op cit, Ins No LXI, P 268 3 Tord, 259 Cf Hultzsch, I A, , p 810 4 "Kahaum or Kahavam, the ancient Kakubhe or Kekubhagrams of this inscrip tion, 16 & village about five miles to the west by south of Salampur-Maybault, the chien town of the Salampur Mabuuli Parvana in Deorya or Dervariya Tahsil or subdivision of the Gorakhpur district in the north-Trest provinces"-Fleet, op cit, P Bhagwania] Indraji, 1.,,p 125 "Cf Smith, op cat, 846 He is said to have succeeded Kumaragupta I in CAD 455 C rond, Barnett, op cit, p 48 C Fleet, op cit, Ins No XV, p 66 , Bhagwanlal Indraji, op and loc czl 208