Tulsi Prajna 1993 02

SR No.: 524574
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Parmeshwar Solanki
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
Publication Year: 1993
Total Pages: 166
Language: Hindi
Classification: Magazine, India_Tulsi Prajna, & India
File Size: 7 MB

Page 125

Mahāvira Era
17
death so many years earlier. In order to overcome the uncertainty our historians assume that the Chandrgupta of the Jaina tradition is identical with Chandagupta Maurya who is supposed to be a contemporary of Seleucus. I have shown elsewhere that Chandragupta Maurya was not a contemporary of Seleucus. So we have to examine only if Chandragupta Maurya can be reasonably equated with the ruler mentioned in the Jaina tradition.
We have seen above that Hemachandra, Bhadreśvara Sūri and Merutunga etc. are not quite unanimous as to the date of Chandragupta (155 or 215 A.M.), but they seem to agree in linking him with Magadha as the Nandas preceded and Puśyamitra followed the Mauryas in Magadha. But these authors (without a single exception) belong to a much later period. So the tradition that links Bhadrabāhu's disciple Chandragupta is undoubtedly later. It is strange, therefore, that scholars like Jacobi and Charpentier rely solely upon them while discussing the date of Mahāvīra.
The evidence that seeks to link Chandragupta with Magadh is not only late, it is far from conclusive. None of the Sanskrit works available to us says Chandragupta Maurya became a Jaina monk. The Palaka who became a king the very night Mahāvīra passed away is called 'AVANTISUDO' in the earliest relevant work, Tiloyapannatti, The dynasty that followed Palaka is called not the Nanda dynasty but the Vijaya dynast, there. None of the Purāņas assigns more than 136 years to the Nandas while the Vijaya dynasty is said to have ruled for 155 years. The dynasty of Chandragupta reigned for 108 years only according to the Jaina works while the Purāṇas assign 137
s to the Mauryas, Puśyamitra reigned for 30 years only according to the Jaina sources while Puśyamitra and his dynasty reigned for 112 or 120 years in Magadha according to the Purānas, Though there was a king called Pālaka in Magadha, he was not a contemporary of Mahāvīra. Pālaka's reign in Magadha was not followed by a new dynasty. The Pradyotas reigned for 138 years and the Siśunagas for 362 years in Magadha before the Nandas came to power. That happened 477 years after Pālaka in Magadha who belonged to the Pradyota dynasty. So we cannot equate the Pālaka of Magadha with the Pālaka of Avanti, not the Nanda dynasty with the Vijaya dynasty. So the Chandragupta of the Jaina works belongs to Avanti and is different from the Maurya ruler. Names like Pālaka, Chandragupta and Puśyamitra have confused later authors who begin their accounts with Avanti and end there too with Gardabhilla and Vikramaditya but believe some of the ruler belonging to the intervening period reigned in Magadha ! That is hardly sensible,