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 291

SEPTEMBER, 1873.]
this it is also to be added that numerous Jaina pilgrims from distant Indian countries, e. g. from Lower Rajasthan, wander to Gay â and to other holy localities of South Bihar."
So far as the successors of the last Jina are concerned, Bhadra bâhu, the author of the Kalpasútra, has given a list of twenty-seven of them with reference to their descent, together with the years in which they followed after Mahavira and his successors.t As the last of these successors is said to have followed in the year 993 as a propagator of the Jaina religion, it is self-evident that, although the names may be correct, the chronological data of this list are worthless. Here it must not be overlooked that the last chronological data occur only in one manuscript. I suspect that the author of the Kalpasútra, after pushing the time of Vardhamâna into too remote an antiquity, has united with each other several lists of contemporaneous chiefs of the Jaina doctrine, so as to present contemporaneous spiritual representatives of this sect as successors.
Now I pass to the comparison of the data concerning the propagation of the Jaina doctrine from Magadha to the other parts of India. It appears very influential during the reign of the Chalukya monarch Pulakesi, who governed a great portion of the Dakhant from about 485 till 510. From the circumstance that, according to the testimony of Hiwen Thsang, Buddhism had formerly flourished much in Julya or Chola, but had in his time entirely disappeared from the country, as well as from the fact that the Jainas, according to incontrovertible testimonies, conquered the Buddhists in this country §,-I have already drawn the conclusion that the Jainas had been very powerful in this part of the Dakhan towards the end of the sixth century. In
LASSEN ON THE JAINS.
Buchanan Hamilton, Trans. of the R. As. Soc. vol. III.
p. 552.
P. 100 se 19. The first is Sudharma; after the 8th Mahigiri, the predecessor of B alis & la, the first of the second list, and the Suhasti who was his contemporary, a double list follows; the first terminates with four funders of sikhús or sects of Jainas, which are called Nagila, Padmila, Jayanta, and Tapasa; the second with Kshamasvamin.
See Ind. Alt. IV. 97, 98.
§ See Ind. Alt. IV. 127, and on the names and site of this country p. 231 and also note 3:
I See Ind. Alt. IV. p. 246.
See Ind. Alt. IV. 239, and Wilson's remarks on the time of this king in Historical Sketch of the Kingdom of Pandya in T. of the R. As. S. III. p. 218. According to Ind. Alt. IV. p. 237, note 2, it is dubious whether the cele
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this district we find this sect still flourishing at the end of the tenth century. In the southernmost district, that of the Pandyas, this religion, which succeeded that of Sakyasinha, likewise found entrance, and the ruler of that country, Kuna Pandya, who is proba bly to be placed in the ninth century, was at first inclined towards it, but afterwards went over to Saivaism. On the Malabar coast the princelings in Tuluva, the principal of whom resided in Ikeri, who were descended from Jaina women, and were formerly dependants of the dynasty of Vijayanagara, greatly loved the doctrines of the Jainas.*
In Gujarât, which is more to the north, the Jaina religion enjoyed the protection of the powerful Valabhi monarch Silâditya, who ruled his extensive realm with a firm hand, from about 545 till 595, although he did not, as has been asserted, belong to this sect himself.t Of the Yadava s who reigned in the peninsula of Gujarat during the last moiety of the twelfth century, one, Mandika, was most probably an adherent of the Jainas, because in the inscription relating to this dynasty he is said to have worshipped Nemi, the 22nd Jina. This doctrine was especially promoted and protected by the family of the Chalukyas which reigned in Chandravati, on the western slope of the Arbuda mountains, under the supremacy of the Vaghela dynasty.§ In this respect Tejapala and his brother Vastupala particularly distinguished themselves. On this mountain they built temples, planted groves and trees, and dug tanks on the roads, in the villages and towns.|| The temples were consecrated by these two pious brothers themselves. The temple which was completed in the month Phalguna deserves special mention. In it statues of the ancestors brated Tamil teacher and author Tiruvallaver was a contemporary of this prince, although tradition makes him so.
See Ind. Alt. IV. p. 180, and Francis Buchanan, A Journey from Madras, &c. 111. p. 8, p. 668, p. 74, p. 78 seq7. &c. The dynasty of Vijayanagara reigned from about 1336 till 1561.
+ Sue Ind. Alt. III. p. 315 seqq.
See Ind. Alt. 111. p. 570.
§ See Ind. Alt. III. p. 57, with note 3, where the names of the members of this family are given. According to Ind. Alt. III. p. 577, the Baghelas reigned from 1179 till 1297.
Wilson's Sanskrit Inscriptions at Abu, in As. Res. XVI. p. 308. This is inscription XVIII. 2 seqq. The month Phalgun answers to the last moiety of February and the first of March.