Tulsi Prajna 1995 10

SR No.: 524585
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Parmeshwar Solanki
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
Publication Year: 1995
Total Pages: 174
Language: Hindi
Classification: Magazine, India_Tulsi Prajna, & India
File Size: 7 MB

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TULSI-PRAJNA
a structure or funeral mound found its way into the systems of the rival religious sects. Though the Buddhists particularly selected and adopted it to their own use, yet the other religious systems prevalent at that time also adopted it.
Following the tradition the Jains built a stupa at Vaishali which was dedicated to Muni Subrata The stupa at Mathura was dedi. cated to suparswadeva. The Jaina literature is replete with the mention of stupa..
The Kankali mound from or near which most of the objects were excavated stands in the angle between the Agra and Goverdhan roads close to the south west corners of the city of Mathura.
The Jaina stupa was excavated by Dr Fuhrer in the season 189091. Mr. Grouse and M. Marding found some objects of archeological int.rest together with a stupa in 1887-99.
The Vodva stupa at Mathura was regarded to old even in 150 A.D. that it was regarded as the work of the gods, several centuries before the Christian era and may have been at least as ancient as the oldest Buddha stupa.
According to Jinprabhasuri there was a stupa at Mathura made of gold and silver which was encased in bricks V. Smith observes,
The Jains especially erected stupas surrounded by stone railings which are indistinguishable from those of the Buddhists and hono. ured the bones of their saints in exactly the same way as did their rivals, uptill now only two Jaina stu pas have been found The larger was 70 feet in diameter excavated by Dr. Fuhrer on the Kankali mount at Mathura."6 A miniature volive stupa of the third or the fourth century A.D. had also come to light. The smaller was excayated at Ramanagar (Ahichhatrapur) in Bareily district.
In the Tirthakalpa of Jinprabha the legend of foundation and repair of vodva stupa is found. According to this work the stupa was originally made of gold and was adorned with precious stones. It was erected in memory of the seventh jina suparswanath by the goddess Kubera. A small votive stupa 101" in height was also found at Holigate of Mathura in excavation.?
According to Dr. Jyotiprakash, the stupa was an early form of the structural architecture of the Jains as evidenced by the excavation of the Kankali-tila site at Mathura, where a large and beautiful stupa believed even about the begining of the christian era to have been built by the gods, in the times of seventh Tirthankara and renovated in those of the 23rd Tirthankara was extant till probably the beginn