________________
THE EVIDENCE OF TRADITION.
3
peace in preference to one of war and aggrèssion. Recent interpretations of the Khara vēla inscription of Kalinga lend support to this view. The Bhadrabāhu inscriptions of Sravana Belgola are even earlier than the Kharavēla inscriptions, for the Karnāta country. This Bhadrabāhu tradition is the starting point of a revival of Jaina activity in South India.
“ In Literature, the Brihatkathākosa, a work aby Harishēna, dated 931, says that Bhadrabāhu, the last of the Srutakēvalis, had the king Chandragupta as his disciple. A similar account is contained in the Bhadrabāhu charita by Ratnanandi of about 1450 ; as is repeated in the Rajavalikatha by Dēvachandra which is a modern compilation of about 1800.” The points worthy of note in this summary of the Bhadrabāhu tradition in the Karnāta country are first, that the inscriptions know only of a Chandragupta-muni, the disciple of Bhadrabāhu, and secondly, that the Jaina literary tradition from the 10th century onwards knows of a king Chandragupta who was perhaps this disciple whom the inscriptions celebrate. Modern historical scholarship has sought to identify this Chandragupta, king and muni, with Chandragupta Maurya, the patron of Kautilya, the accredited author of the Arthasastra. The Kharavēla tradition makes the Nandas of Magadha the followers of the Jaina faith, for, it speaks of a Nanda Raja who led a conquering expedition into Kalinga and carried
