World Jain Conference 1987 4th Conference

SR No.: 014038
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Satish Jain, Kamalchand Sogani
Publisher: Ahimsa International
Publication Year: 1987
Total Pages: 202
Language: English
Classification: Seminar & Articles
File Size: 7 MB

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Tiruchirapalli, further south to Pudukottai and then to the hills of Madurai. However, this belief rests on the general, but relatively late, accounts of Chandragupta Maurya and Acharya Bhadrabahu migrating to Sravana Belagola from the north in the early third century B. C. The earliest reliable archaeological source for this belief is an inscription at Sravana Belagola, which, as this writer has shown elsewhere, clearly shows that it was not the Srutakevali Bhadrabahu (Bhadrabahu first) but another later Bhadrabahu, and the inscription itself gives names of some of the Jaina acharyas who flourished between the two Bhadrabahus. So it is not impossible that this earlier evidence of Jaina monks in Tamil Nadu was the result, perhaps, of the infiltration from Pratisthanapur, either during the reign of Samprati, the grandson of Ashoka (as the Brhat-kalpa-bhashya suggests) or during the rule of some early Satavahana rulers who had Jaina leanings. There is no archaeological evidence, as yet discovered, of the existence of Jainism in Karnataka (and especially at Sravana Belagola) before the Christian era. As yet no art or archaeological evidence of Jainism before even the third or fourth century is found so far as Karnataka is concerned.
Rajgir in Bihar is one of the very old sites of Hindu, Buddhist and Jaina associations. The Son Bhandara cave and the cave adjacent to it (on the Vaibhara hill) were carved, for the use of Jaina monks and for the worship of images of Arhats, by Acharyaratna Muni Vairadeva of great lustre, identified with Stavira Arya Vajra, who died in c.57 A.D., according to Pattavalis. Attempts have recently been made to equate the Prakrit name Vairadeva with Viradeva but Vaira in Prakrit can only be Vajra in Sanskrit. It is not unlikely that the inscription referring to Vairadeva in such glorious terms was recorded at a later date (in the fourth century A.D) when the adjacent cave fell into the hands of followers of Vishnu. (The architecture of the cave is of early type comparable with that of the Barabara cave and the Son Bhandara cave still retains traces of Mauryan Polish on its wall.
The Various finds of the Jaina Stupa at Kankali Tila, Mathura, iuclude figures of Tirthankaras sitting in padmasana or standing in the kayotsarga posture, Ayagapatas or Tablets of Homage which are known to the Jaina canonical texts as Silapatas and which are evolved from the Silapatas of Mahavira's time worshipped in Yaksha shrines like the Purnabhadra Caitya, various auspicious symbols later crystalised into ashtamangala (eight aususpicious symbols), representations of worship of Stupas, Pillars surmounted by Dharmacakra or the Dhvaja symbols of various Tirthankaras. Such Dhvaja Pillars were erected in front of shrines of different gods in ancient India and the Jainas also erected pillars in front of shrines of different Tirthankaras. Such a pillar was surmounted by the dhvaja-symbol of the Ksatriya family of the Tirthankara in front of whose temple the pillar was erected and worshipped. The Jainas also worshipped another type of pillars known
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