Indian Antiquary Vol 02

SR No.: 032494
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 428
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

Page 216

196
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
Indra, assuming the form of a Brahman, will take the part of the persecuted, and Kalkin will die in his 87th year. His son and successor Datta will be instructed in the Jaina doctrine by Sakra himself, and will, under the guidance of Prâ tipada, build chaityas for many Arhats. He will erect also many sanctuaries; among others also on Mount Satruñjaya in Surashtra, and in Aryan and non-Aryan Indian countries he will everywhere canse temples to be built for the Jainas, according to the instructions of his guru or spiritual teacher.
Now so far as the inducement to the above two tales is concerned, the raid of the Mudgalas into Surashtra, Lâța, and the adjoining countries is referable only to the invasion of Mahmûd the Ghaznivide in the years 1025 and 1026, during which he plundered the rich temple of Somanâ tha, in the peninsula of Gujarât, and on his return march reached also the capital, Analavâdâ, -especially as this event is placed before the time of Kum à ra påla. The name Mudgala is most correctly explained from the Sanskrit word mudgala, hammer, and understood to mean the smashing power of the foreign invaders. It is difficult to discover the basis of the second narrative, because several miracles and incredible events are mixed up with it, e. g. the disinterment of the stúpa of King N and a, and the appearance of the stone-cow Lagnadevi. Further, the ancient capital Pâtaliputra had long ceased to exist at the time to which I think the reign of Kalkin must be referred; and the reign of Datta also over Aryan and non-Aryan India is evidently a fiction. If this tale be divested of its fabulous additions: Kalkin persecuted the Jainas but thereby lost his life, whilst his son Datta zealously
[JULY, 1873.
protected them. According to the chronology of the Satrunjayamáhatmya, Kalkin was born 1914 years after the death of Vira; this event is placed 947 years before the reign of Siladity at. As, according to the statement of Dhanesvara, this monarch began his reign A. D. 555, the appearance of Kalkin falls under the year 1522, i. e. at a time when the history of inner India contains no information whatever about the reign of a dynasty favourable to the Jaina doctrine. Accordingly I do not hesitate in the least to consider the tale about the acts of Kalkin and of his son Datta as inventions of Dhanesvara, whose intention it was, by means of them, to open out to his co-religionists the vista of a happy future. To this also point the words with which the narrative closes: "During the reign of his son Datta prosperity and plenty will reign everywhere, the rulers will be just, the ministers benevolent, and the people will observe the law."
See Ind. Alt. III. p. 558 seqq. The above explanation of the name has been proposed by A. Weber, p. 41, note 2.
+ Namely, according to XIV. v. 101 seqq. p. 92, Panchamara, the pupil of Vira, died 8 years and 8 months after the demise of his teacher, and Vikramarka or Vikramaditya lived 466 years 1 months after him, but Siladitya, socording to above, p. 195, 477 years after him. The numbers give 946 years and 18 months, or nearly 947 years. The passage about the age of Vikram Aditya is literally as follows: "8 years and 8 months after the death of Vira, the law-purifying Panchamara will appear; 466 years and 1 months afterwards Vikramarka will, according to the instruction of Siddhasená, govern the earth according to the Jina doctrine, and superseding our (i.e. the Jaina) era will propagate his own.
Time of the building of some of the larger temples at Satranjaya.-ED. § See Ind. Alt. III. 517.
After the preceding examination of the prophetic portion of the Satrunjayamáhatmya, I consider myself justified in placing the composition of this book in the age after the invasions of Mahmûd of Ghazni; in favour of this view I also point to the destruction of the temple of Balarama and Krishna at Mathura, attributed to Kalkin, because Mahmûd in 1017 actually demolished the celebrated temple of Krishna which was situated there. § If this view is incontrovertible, as I believe it to be, the work in question must either have two authors, or, if it has only one, he can at the earliest, have written only in the first half of the 11th century; but, after all, the uniformity of the clear and simple style of both portions of this book, composed in slokas, militates against the assumption of two authors. I leave it unde
For this reason A. Weber compares (passim, p. 14) the style with that of Bhattikavya, the author whereof was, according to Ind. Alt. III. p. 512, a contemporary of Sridharasena the first; here, however, he overlooks that Somadeva, who lived much later under Harsha, a king of Kasmir, uses just as simple and clear language. The same observes (passim, p. 15) that the author of the work in question makes use of several words which elsewhere at least are rare. The connection smarámyasmi which occurs X. 158, sins directly against classic usage, because asmi is a superfluous addition. The comparison with the formation of the auxiliary future of the conditional and of the four first forms of the aorist does not suit, because here the auxiliary verb is fused with the thema into a single. form, the formation whereof philology alone has discovered. Similarly the examples cited in Boehtlingk-Roth's Sanskrit Wörterbuche, I. p. 586, do not belong to this, because they are forms of the participial future in ta, which forms are followed by many tenses of the auxiliary verb.